


Nine Lives

by Diamond_Raven



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Happy Ending, Healing, M/M, Not crack fic, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Temporary Animal Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-01-06 08:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diamond_Raven/pseuds/Diamond_Raven
Summary: After the trigger removal process goes wrong and he suffers brain damage, Bucky is left in a comatose state while in Wakanda. Steve is faced with the difficult decision of having to decide what Bucky would want for his future. The choices are very limited until Shuri offers a temporary solution: transfer Bucky’s consciousness into a cat until they’ve developed the technology to fix the brain damage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This fic was inspired by Royal_Ermine. This one’s dedicated to you, my dear friend!  
> 2\. This story involves lots of handwavey science, so please ignore any obvious problems.  
> 3\. T’Challa, Shuri and Ramonda are minor characters.  
> 4\. I love comments in any size, shape or form and I love chatting with readers, so it means the world to me if you took the time to write me a comment if you enjoy the story!

*             *             *

“I learned how to count to ten in Wakandan today,” Steve tells Bucky. The only response is the calm Wakandan music that always plays in the room and the quiet beeps of the medical equipment which are keeping Bucky alive.

The Wakandan medical staff have told Steve that Bucky probably can’t hear him, but if there’s even a tiny chance, then Steve will keep doing it. Besides, talking to Bucky provides Steve some comfort too. At least Bucky’s not in pain. He’s not…anything, really.

He’s been in a coma for three months. When Shuri and her team had finished developing the technology that would remove the trigger words from Bucky’s mind, they had taken Bucky out of cryostasis and told him about the procedure. It came with high risks, but it was the only option they had at that point. Their technology was highly advanced, but brain manipulation was always a risky thing.

Bucky had been given two choices: go back into cryostasis and wait until the technology had advanced more—which could be years—or go through with the procedure now.

It had seemed like an impossible choice to Steve, so he was glad it hadn’t been his decision. Bucky had asked Steve what he wanted Bucky to do, but Steve had left it up to him.

“I want you to pick whichever option will make you happy, Buck. That’s all I want out of life.”

When it came down to it, Bucky said he didn’t even need time to think about it. He was tired of spending time frozen in a tube as the decades slipped past him, taking the life he’d known before further and further away from him.

He’d made a face, then given Steve a firm look. “You know what I always say when we get dealt bad cards, right?”

Steve had sighed, hating that they always ended up in these situations. “Yeah, Buck.”

“Sometimes the cards we get ain’t great, but that’s the cards we gotta choose from. Ain’t no use wasting time, waiting for better cards to come when you know that ain’t gonna happen. We just gotta pick the best of the bad cards and keep moving. Even if the procedure don’t go well and I lose my memories or I can’t talk properly or whatever’s gonna happen—at least I’ll get to live life.”

So they did the procedure. The technology had worked and did what it was supposed to do. What none of them had predicted was that the years of electroshock torture had left Bucky’s brain too weak to handle what was being done to it. The trigger words had been erased, but Bucky had been left in a comatose state. As far as the medical staff can tell, Bucky’s brain is still active, but it’s too weak to control his body. He can’t even breathe without a machine helping him do it.

So they’d gone from Bucky being frozen in a tube to him being in a coma on a bed.

Shuri had promised him that she’d keep working on finding a solution and they’d decided to keep Bucky out of cryostasis for the first six months. After that, they’d move him back into cryo to preserve his body.

The only bright spot in the entire mess is the fact that Steve knows this had been Bucky’s choice. He couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d made the decision on Bucky’s behalf, knowing what it had led to. That’s the only reason Steve allows himself to sit by Bucky’s bedside day after day.

He makes sure he exercises, eats properly and he’s been slowly learning Wakandan. Bucky would be very annoyed if Steve wasted away because of the choice Bucky had made.

T’Challa, Shuri or Ramonda sometimes sit with him, keeping him company. But on most days, it’s just Steve, Bucky and the few medical staff who come into Bucky’s room to check on the machines.

Steve knows he can’t spend the rest of his life sitting by Bucky’s side. He could easily live another hundred years and Bucky would be very annoyed if Steve spent all those years sitting by Bucky’s bedside or next to his cryo tube. He tells himself that he’ll keep Bucky daily company until Bucky’s put back into cryostasis and then Steve will make more of an effort to move on with his own life.

*             *             *

As the days tick by, Steve gets more and more anxious about the thought of Bucky going back into cryostasis. It won’t affect his interactions with Bucky a lot, but seeing Bucky in his hospital bed allows Steve to convince himself that Bucky’s just sleeping, that he needs a lot of rest after what he’s been through. He’s in a nice, bright room and there’s always some soothing music playing in the background. The sunshine streams through the window and it’s warm and comfortable.

The thought of Bucky having to go back into an icy tomb is very upsetting. He doesn’t remember a lot from when the plane had crashed into the ice, but he remembers the ice cold water filling the plane and that bitter cold clutching him like a vice.

Bucky’s gone through that dozens of times during his time with Hydra and Steve hates the idea of him having to do it again.

Thinking about what will happen if the Wakandans never find a solution also bothers Steve. Would Bucky really want to spend decades or even hundreds of years in cryostasis? Unfortunately, Steve knows the answer to that. He’s known Bucky his entire life and he knows him better than he knows himself.

Bucky wouldn’t want that. If this is the hand he’s been dealt, then it’s what Bucky would want to live with. Or rather—die with.

And what’s even more unfortunate is that Steve—as Bucky’s legal next of kin—has to be the one to carry out the choices Bucky would want to make.

That’s been weighing very heavily on Steve’s mind. He knows he could decide to put Bucky back into cryo and keep him there for the rest of Steve’s life or even longer, but he knows that’s not what Bucky would want. But just the thought of having to ask for the machines to be turned off so Bucky can die a natural death is too upsetting to even think about, even if that’s what Bucky would want.

Steve has nobody else to talk to about these heavy issues, so he mentions them to Shuri one day when he’s feeling particularly sorry for himself and Bucky.

Shuri makes a sympathetic face when Steve tells her about not wanting to put Bucky into cryo. “He will not feel pain, Steve. We will give him pain medication and he won’t feel it.”

“He won’t feel the pain, but he’ll feel the cold.”

She sighs. “We will do the process as quickly as we can, but it’s a dangerous procedure and—”

“No, I know. It’s…it’s more than that. I hate the idea of him going into cryo, but I know he wouldn’t want to stay in cryo for years anyway. Eventually, I’ll have to make a choice and I know what he’d want, but that’s really hard to think about.” He gives her a sad smile.

Shuri bites her lip. “Steve…”

“Yeah?”

“There is something…my brother made me promise…but…” She makes a face.

Steve smiles softly. “Don’t put yourself at odds with T’Challa for my sake or for Bucky’s. You’ve all done so much for us already—especially for Bucky—and I know he’s grateful for what you did. The fact that this was the outcome was something he knew could happen, but he made his decision.”

She shakes her head. “No, I know that. It’s something else. We have this…specific technology and it didn’t occur to me until recently that it could possibly be used for Bucky’s situation.”

Steve freezes. “You have an idea?”

“Oh, it is more than an idea. But it’s highly unconventional and it hasn’t been done before. We would need to do lots of testing and I think it would work, but T’Challa believes it would not be an appropriate solution.”

“Shuri, Buck’s only options right now are to stay in a coma or go back into the ice or…” He can’t say the words out loud. He’s not ready for that. “I know he’d be open to any other options you might have.”

She stares at him very intently. “Even if it might lead to his death?”

Steve knows the answer to that without having to think about it. “Absolutely. His main reason for going into cryo was to keep the people around him safe. His next priority was to get those trigger words out of his head. Now that he’s accomplished both things, he’d want to do whatever it takes to live. Buck’s a fighter and this—” Steve waves a hand at Bucky on the bed. “—ain’t a life. It’s not what Buck would want. And I know he sure as hell wouldn’t wanna spend more decades in cryo. At this point, I know Buck would choose death over the other options, so that’s not a deal breaker.”

Shuri stares at him. “So you don’t intend for us to put him back into cryostasis?”

Steve sighs. “I haven’t fully decided yet, but I really have to think about what Buck would want. He’s trusting me to make the decision that he’d want, even if it’s at odds with what I want. So I don’t know about any of that, but if you have an option—even if it’s a dangerous one—then Bucky would wanna try it. You’ve seen proof of that already.”

Shuri’s chewing on her lip as she stares at Bucky, narrowing her eyes in thought. After a few minutes, she slams her fists on the armrests of her chair. “Okay.” Standing up, she gives Steve a firm nod. “I’m going back to my lab and maybe I will have some good news—dangerous and crazy news—but good news for you in a few days.”

Steve opens his mouth to thank her and say goodbye, but Shuri’s already walking out of Bucky’s room, the door sliding shut behind her. He’s left gaping after her, not really understanding what had just happened.

Does Shuri really have another option for Bucky?! Despite his attempts to rein it in, excitement races through him.

Leaning over, he squeezes Bucky’s limp hand. “You hear that, Buck? I don’t know what Shuri’s talking about, but maybe she’s got a plan! Something that’ll be better than cryo…or the other option.”

Bucky doesn’t respond, but Steve gently smooths a strand of hair off his face for him and strokes his fingers down his cheek. “We’ll see what Shuri has to say when she’s ready and then we’ll talk about it, okay?”

*             *             *

“I’m sorry, you wanna what?!” He must have heard her wrong.

T’Challa sighs and looks pained. “Shuri, I told you that this was _not_ an appropriate idea. I—”

“No, no, listen! Neither of you are taking the time to understand!”

T’Challa gives Steve a sympathetic look. “Steve, I’m truly sorry. My sister sometimes—”

But Steve is fully focused on trying to understand what the hell Shuri just said. “Shuri, I need you to repeat what you said, cause there’s no way you said what I think you said.”

Realizing that Steve isn’t blowing her off, Shuri grabs the seat next to Steve, leaving T’Challa standing by Bucky’s bed.

“It involves transferring somebody’s mind. Not just their consciousness, but their memories too. Their entire mind is moved over, just like transferring files from a computer.”

Steve had understood that part when she’d explained it before. It’s the next part that had left him gaping at her and confused. “I understand that and it sounds great…but you want to transfer Bucky’s mind into a…cat?!”

She nods, looking very excited. “Yes! The problem is that Bucky’s mind isn’t strong enough to control a human body. But a cat’s body is less complex and he should be able to do it.”

Steve blinks. “You’re serious??”

T’Challa groans. “Shuri…”

“Yes, I’m completely serious!”

Steve looks at T’Challa. “Is this even possible?”

T’Challa sighs heavily. “Possible? Yes. We have used the technology before. We’ve done transfers between animals and also between humans and it worked. We’ve never done the transfer from a human to an animal, but there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work. But the logistics is not what I’m concerned about.” That’s when he directs a frown at his sister. “I don’t believe Bucky would want to wake up in a cat’s body and live the rest of his life as a cat.”

Shuri’s shaking her head. “It would not be the rest of his life! We can keep his body in cryostasis until we have the technology to repair the brain damage, then we can transfer him back, repair the damage and he’ll wake up, good as new!”

Steve holds up his hand. “Just—wait. I still don’t understand the cat part. How can you change somebody’s human brain into a cat brain? And how would that help Buck?”

“We would not be changing Bucky’s brain at all. We would just transfer his mind into a temporary host.”

“So…he’d still be Bucky?”

Shuri makes a face. “Yes and no. He would have his memories and he would be conscious, but he would be limited by the cat’s smaller brain. For example, he couldn’t speak like a normal human and he wouldn’t be able to read, but he would be able to understand human speech and recognize people.”

Steve stares at her. The whole thing sounds insane. “Shuri, if this is a stupid joke, then you’ve taken it far enough.”

She slams her fist onto the armrest of her chair. “It’s not a joke! You said you wanted an option other than cryostasis or death and this is an option. Bucky can spend a few years living as a cat and then we’ll be able to transfer him back. But even if he cannot ever control his human body again, he can continue living as a cat.”

“What—what about when the cat dies? Cats have much shorter lifespans than humans.”

“Yes, but when the cat’s body gets old, we can transfer him into a younger cat.”

Steve blinks. It still sounds insane, but the idea has a lot of appeal. Bucky would actually get to live life. Not the life he’d lived before, but he wouldn’t be locked up in a body that he can’t use and he wouldn’t be frozen.

At first, Steve had thought living as a cat would be a horrible suggestion, but then he starts to really think about it and realizes it wouldn’t be that bad. Cats have pretty good lives, don’t they? He’s never had a cat, but from what he knows, they spend their time playing, eating and sleeping in the sun. It’s a relaxed, simple life. If there’s one thing Bucky definitely deserves, it’s to live a relaxing, simple life.

“Steve?”

Steve glances up at the sound of T’Challa’s voice. “Yeah?”

“Are you seriously considering this?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I know it sounds crazy, but I think Buck would like this idea. Whether he’s conscious or not in there—” Steve gestures at Bucky on the bed. “—if he had the chance to live a real life, he’d wanna go for it.”

Now that Steve’s starting to warm up to the idea, the practical issues need to be addressed. “Shuri, how risky is the procedure?”

“There is always some risk, but we have used this technology for years without problems. We’ve never done the transfer from human to cat, but I have looked at the data and run simulations and it should work.”

“What if the transfer goes wrong? Could we put Bucky’s mind back into his human body?”

“We would try our best but there is a chance we would not succeed. We could damage Bucky’s mind to the extent that he would never be able to recover.”

Steve sighs. Once again, Bucky’s life would be at risk, but this time it would be Steve who has to make the decision for him.

But then he realizes that if they don’t do this, Bucky’s eventual death is certain because staying in a coma or cryo aren’t what Bucky would want. That’ll also have to be Steve’s decision. This way, Bucky has a chance to live life. And that’s definitely what he’d want.

Plus, Steve won’t have to face the impossible task of giving the order to turn off the machines. Well, he still might, but at least he’ll know that he’d tried everything possible to save Bucky’s life.

He meets Shuri’s hopeful gaze. “Let’s do it.”

*             *             *

The next day, Shuri takes him to a nearby animal hospital so they can find Bucky’s new host.

They’re shown into a hospital room containing incubators which are filled with cats of all ages, who are all in comas for various reasons. There are a handful of male cats who are potential candidates—meaning, they’re currently brain dead.

Steve had been firm about the fact that Bucky wouldn’t want to destroy a cat’s own consciousness when he takes over their body. Shuri had assured him that a cat with a brain that’s not functioning at all can simply stay in the body and share the space with Bucky’s own consciousness. The cat’s own mind won’t interfere with Bucky’s ability to use the host body.

The other problem is that they can’t use a cat who currently belongs to somebody else, who wouldn’t want a random human suddenly taking over their cat’s body. Not to mention that there’s no way Steve would allow anybody else to take care of Bucky.

So they’re left with just a few candidates. Shuri tells him there’s no rush and Steve can wait until he finds a suitable cat, but when Steve sees the cats, he already knows he’s found the right one.

One of them is a tough looking black cat, who’s approximately 3 years old. The hospital staff tell him the cat was a stray somebody was found on the street and brought in. The cat had been suffering from a severe infection and by the time the staff managed to bring it under control, the cat had suffered irreversible brain damage. If anybody asked Steve to describe what Bucky would look like in cat-form, this is the cat he’d describe, so it’s perfect.

“The black one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

*             *             *

There are so many things to think about that Steve actually forgets about the fact that if this whole thing goes sideways and they lose or damage Bucky’s mind during the transfer, Bucky will die.

There won’t be any coming back from it.

They could keep his body alive with the help of machines and they could even transfer another consciousness into Bucky’s body, but Bucky himself—the essence that made Bucky _Bucky_ —would be gone.

And that’s terrifying.

Steve spends the night before the procedure sitting by Bucky’s bedside, holding his limp hand and going back and forth over whether to take the risk or not.

But he keeps coming back to the same conclusion over and over again. Bucky wouldn’t want to spend any more time like this. He’d already spent decades trapped in a body that he had no control over and staying in a coma or going into cryo would just prolong that. Even if things go sideways and he dies, Bucky would want to try this. And that’s the only thing that matters.

_“Sometimes the cards we get dealt ain’t great, but that’s the cards we gotta choose from. Ain’t no use wasting time, waiting for better cards to come when you know that ain’t gonna happen. We just gotta pick the best of the bad cards and keep moving.”_

In this case, Steve’s the one who has the pick which card to use, but he knows which card Bucky would want him to choose.

Steve sighs. “Okay. We’re gonna try this, Buck. I know it’s what you’d want and you’d take the risk. And if things don’t go well, then I know you’re gonna plant yourself right inside the gates of Heaven and wait for me, and the first thing you’ll say when you see me is ‘Thanks for trying, punk. That was the card I’d have picked. It was definitely worth a shot.’”

Bucky doesn’t respond.

Steve takes a shaky breath, clutching Bucky’s hand. “I don’t know how I’m gonna deal with losing you again. But I can’t be selfish and keep you around like this just cause I’d miss you like hell if you were gone. Well, I miss you anyway, but I can’t keep clinging to this little bit of you that’s here now.”

He can’t believe it’s come to this again. Ever since Bucky got his letter from the draft board in 1942, life’s been dealing them one blow after another. All he and Bucky ever wanted was to live quiet, happy lives together. The fact that they could never be open about their relationship never bothered them too much. In fact, Steve would happily go back to the days of homosexuality not being accepted by society if it would get him and Bucky back to the lives they had before.

But there’s no use dwelling on any of that. They’re here, in the future and Bucky’s in a coma and tomorrow, Steve will make his last desperate run at the enemy in the hopes of salvaging what little joy they can scrape out of life.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve spends the night sleeping next to Bucky’s bed. He has no idea if Bucky’s even aware of his presence, but if things go wrong then Steve doesn’t want Bucky to spend his last night alone.

The other benefit is that there are very few medical staff around at night, so Steve can touch Bucky’s face and cry as much as he wants to without anybody disturbing him.

*             *             *

During the procedure, Steve stays by Bucky’s side. Whether the transfer works or not, Bucky’s consciousness will end up leaving him and he’ll essentially die.

So Steve sits next to him, holding his hand and talking to him. “You’re being so brave, Buck. It ain’t gonna hurt, don’t worry. And if things go well, then I’ll see you real soon, but if things don’t go well, then I’ll see you…in a bit. Don’t do too much exploring up there without me, okay?”

Steve hasn’t seriously thought about what he’ll do if this procedure doesn’t work and Bucky dies but he already knows the only option that holds any attraction to him. He wants to be with Bucky, he wants to be happy, he wants to stop being in pain.

If Bucky goes, Steve will follow soon after. Just like last time. Except this time, he’ll be smarter about it so this new body of his won’t foil his efforts again.

But there’s no use thinking about that right now. There’s a chance that this procedure will work and Shuri told Steve to stay as positive as he can, while also acknowledging that Steve wants to say goodbye to Bucky in case things don’t go well.

He keeps talking to Bucky and holding his hand while Shuri, the technicians and doctors get things set up. Finally, Shuri gives him a nod. “We’re ready.”

Squeezing Bucky’s hand, Steve ignores the presence of everybody else around him as he leans over and kisses Bucky softly on the lips. “Don’t be scared,” he whispers, blinking back tears. “I’ll be right here until the end, I promise. I love you, Buck. I’ll see you soon.”

One way or another.

Then the machines start blinking and whining, and Steve glances at the monitor which is showing Bucky’s brain wave activity. One second, it’s full of squiggly lines, then the line abruptly flattens, like the hand of God had smacked it down.

Bucky’s gone.

There’s a whirlwind of activity as half the team shifts their focus to the unconscious cat who’s lying on the bed next to Bucky’s and the other half start detaching the medical equipment from Bucky and getting him prepared for cryostasis.

That’s when Steve has to move aside. He kisses Bucky’s rapidly cooling hand and gently lays it on the bed. Standing up, he gets out of the organized chaos as everybody works on taking care of Bucky’s mind and body—which have now been separated.

He knows the process will take several hours and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to help. Deciding that he’d rather not be here if things go wrong with the transfer, he follows the medical team who are wheeling Bucky’s body into the cryostasis chamber.

*             *             *

Once Bucky’s body has been put into cryo, the unit is taken away to a long term facility where his body will be monitored for however long they want.

Following along allows Steve to push aside all the what-ifs of what will happen with the transfer. He trusts Shuri but he still doesn’t fully believe that this transfer thing will work properly. Bucky’s mind was so fragile and there are so many things that could go wrong and Steve doesn’t want to make himself any more anxious than he already is.

When he’s leaving the cryo facility, Steve feels a beep on his phone. Pulling it out, he sees that it’s Shuri calling him. He doesn’t even get out a greeting before she’s interrupting him.

“Steve! It worked!”

Steve blinked. “The transfer’s done?”

“Yes! The cat has brainwave activity!”

A small flare of hope lights up within Steve’s chest, but he quickly tempers it. If this poor cat can somehow use Bucky’s mind or whatever fragments that were transferred over, that’s great. But that doesn’t mean that Bucky’s actually inhabiting the cat’s body.

But that little bit of hope is enough for Steve to hurry back to the medical facility. The black cat has been put into a kennel to sleep off the sedation and its vital signs were strong enough for the staff to remove the monitoring equipment from its body.

Steve crouches down and stares through the metal bars of the cage at the sleeping black cat. “How—Shuri, how are we gonna know it’s Bucky in there?”

Shuri grins. “You will know. Bucky will let you know.”

Great.

Sitting down on the floor, he leans against the wall of kennels across from the sleeping cat’s cage and waits.

His head is still full of grief from having watched Bucky die and he still doesn’t believe that this cat will have any real connection to Bucky. But the poor cat didn’t have a family either, so Steve thinks he’ll take him home, no matter what happens. Even if Steve isn’t planning on being around for much longer, he’ll still take the time to find the cat a good home before he goes.

It takes a few hours for the cat’s sedative to wear off. Steve passes the time playing his Wakandan-language learning game on his phone and eventually Shuri comes in.

“I brought us lunch.”

Steve manages a grin. “I won’t say no to that.”

She sits down on the floor next to him and hands him one of the plates of food. While they eat, she takes his phone from him and quizzes him on the new words he’s learning. Of course, that means lots of laughing at Steve’s pronunciation, but Steve is happy for the company and it’s a nice distraction.

As they’re going through basic sentences involving ordering food at a restaurant, a noise from the kennel across from them catches their attention.

Shuri puts her plate down and crawls across the floor, peering into the cage. “I think he’s waking up!” she says quietly, sounding excited.

Steve puts his own plate aside and cautiously moves up beside her, looking into the dark cage.

The black cat is slowly blinking, looking very sleepy.

“Hello, Bucky!” Shuri says, giving the cat a little wave.

Steve stares at the cat and that desperate hope is back. He’s hoping the cat will sit up and smile and wave back…but then he reminds himself it’s a damn cat and that this whole consciousness transfer probably didn’t work properly anyway.

The cat blinks and its eyes move back and forth between Shuri and Steve, but there’s no other reaction.

And that’s when Steve’s hope starts to fade again.

Steve keeps his eyes on the cat, waiting to see what it’ll do. As the cat’s return to consciousness accelerates, it starts shifting around. It lifts a paw and its sharp claws extend.

For some reason, that seems to disturb the cat. Before Steve can blink, the cat has brought its four legs underneath itself, trying to stand up. It’s still weak and it collapses before it’s fully standing, but the failed attempt seems to bring a rush of adrenalin and the cat starts to hiss. It hauls itself to its shaking legs and stares back and forth between Shuri and Steve with wide eyes.

Shuri waves again. “Hello, Bucky! Welcome back. I know this is scary, but you’re inhabiting the body of a cat. We—” The rest of Shuri’s words are drowned out by the cat going into a complete panic.

Hissing, its ears flatten against its head as it bares it sharp teeth and starts swiping at the cage bars with razor sharp claws. It shuffles back, hunched close to the floor, then runs at the cage door, hissing and swiping its claws through the spaces.

Shuri and Steve both rear back at the cat’s aggression and get themselves out of claw range.

Steve is starting to feel panic. He’d already promised himself that he’d take the cat home, but how can he deal with this crazed animal?! “Shuri—”

“I think Bucky’s scared and confused right now. Maybe he does not remember me? I think I should leave you here with him for a little while and we’ll see if he calms down.”

Steve stares at her. Shuri wants to leave him alone with this psychotic thing?! “I—”

She gives him a confident smile as the cat’s hissing and the sound of its claws skittering across the metal floor of the cage echo around them. “He will recognize you eventually, I am sure of it. Just give him time. The re-adjustment of being in a new host is always disorienting. If he is exhausting himself too much, then I’ll ask the medical staff to give him a sedative. But I want you to try first. You need to speak to him. Tell him what happened and that you are here to take care of him.”

She must see from the panicked expression on Steve’s face that he’s not okay with that plan at all, because she grabs his hands. “You will be fine. Just try for a few minutes and if it doesn’t go well, we will give him a little more sedative.”

Then she’s standing up, grabbing their plates and leaving Steve alone with the cat.

Steve gapes after her as the door slides shut behind her. The cat doesn’t seem to notice anything’s changed—or maybe it doesn’t care—because it keeps hissing and trying to get at Steve through the bars of the cage.

Staring at the angry cat, Steve feels at a complete loss of what to do. Well, Shuri had said that talking to it might calm it down. But he doesn’t know how to address it. He has no idea if it’s really Bucky in there and the cat doesn’t have its own name.

Then he realizes he’s overthinking it. If it’s not really Bucky in there, then the cat won’t understand him, and if Bucky really is in there, then he’ll recognize his name. So it’s better to address the cat as if it really is Bucky.

At least, until Steve gets some kind of sign whether the transfer’s worked properly or not.

Steve slides back from the cage and leans back against the wall, hoping that putting some distance between himself and the cat will calm it down.

But the cat’s anger doesn’t fade. It keeps hissing, clawing at the floor and the bars and baring its teeth at Steve, its ears flat against its head. Okay, so talking is still Steve’s only option. “Buck? If that’s you in there, then I know you’re probably scared and confused.”

The hissing and scratching continues.

“You were in a coma. The trigger removal process worked, but your brain suffered damage and you were in a coma. The Wakandans—we’re in Wakanda, in case you don’t remember—they have this technology that allows somebody’s consciousness to be transferred into a new body. Your brain couldn’t control your human body, so we—well, _I_ —decided to put you into the body of a cat.”

There’s no change in the cat’s aggression and Steve has no idea if it’s able to understand a word that Steve’s saying. But just in case…

“So if you can hear me and understand me, that means the transfer worked. You’re still you, but just in a cat’s body. At least, that’s how Shuri explained it to me. If you hate it, then I guess we can transfer you back into your human body, but I thought…I thought you might enjoy getting to live life a bit.”

The whole thing is starting to sound really stupid and Steve is having serious doubts about this whole thing. Why the hell would Bucky want to live as a cat?!

“It…it wouldn’t be permanent. We’re hoping that eventually Shuri will find a way to fix the brain damage and then we can put you back into your human body. But until then, I thought this…would be a good idea?”

The cat’s anger seems completely unaffected by Steve’s words.

But now Steve’s run out of things to say. That means he’s left thinking over how to calm an enraged cat…and that’s when he realizes the cat might be scared being locked in a cage.

In fact, if it’s really Bucky in there, maybe he’s terrified of having woken up in a cage?!

The second he thinks about it, Steve wants to kick himself. Of course Bucky would be scared if he woke up and found himself in a cage! For decades, Bucky’s been moved from one prison cell to another—first in Azzano, then with Hydra, then with the US government—and with a smaller cat’s brain to work with, he might not be able to focus on many things at once.

He needs to let Bucky out of the cage. And even if it’s not Bucky in there and it’s just a cat, it shouldn’t stay in a cage when it’s so scared.

“I’m gonna open the cage door, okay? You can run around in here, but please don’t hurt me. If you do, they’re gonna have to sedate you. But I won’t touch you, I promise.”

Sliding forward, Steve reaches for the locking mechanism on the door. As soon as his hand comes close, the cat is swiping at it and it manages to claw Steve’s hand with its sharp claws.

“Oh, shit!” Steve yanks his hand back, seeing thin scratches on his hand which are already starting to bleed. Moving quickly, Steve grabs the lock and wrenches the door open, then scrambles backwards on the floor until he’s in a corner by the door.

Immediately, the cat leaps out of the cage and races around the room a few times, before coming to a stop in the corner across from Steve. It’s hunched over and close to the floor as it glares at Steve and hisses.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Buck. You remember who I am? I’m Steve. I know you’re scared and everything seems real strange, but if you give it a chance, I think it’ll be fine.”

The words sound really stupid in Steve’s head, but he can’t think of what else to say.

Now that the cat’s under the bright lights of the recovery room, Steve can see that it’s trembling and its tail is twitching. It looks terrified.

“I know you’re scared, but it’s gonna be okay.”

Not knowing what else to say, Steve keeps repeating the same few phrases over and over. He tries to keep his voice calm, but the more time passes, the more his hope fades. Bucky’s had plenty of time to recognize him and Steve doesn’t think it would take Bucky this long to give Steve some kind of sign that he’s Bucky.

So Steve comes to the conclusion that this cat is just a cat. It’s probably using Bucky’s mind to control its own body, but this cat has no true connection to Bucky. Which means Steve has now temporarily adopted a cat and he also has to deal with the fact that he’d lost Bucky for good. The reassuring phrases he’d been saying die in his throat and he struggles not to cry.

Glancing at the cat, he notices that it seems to be calming down. It’s still hunched up and glaring at Steve, but it’s stopped hissing so that’s progress.

But Steve’s feeling overwhelmed with the thought that he’s lost the love of his life a few hours ago and he doesn’t have the energy to focus on the cat anymore. Bucky had fought so hard and for so long, and now because Steve made a stupid decision, he’s gone forever.

Steve tries to remind himself that Bucky would have wanted to try the procedure, but it still hurts. A lump squeezes his throat and the tears come with no warning, rolling down his cheeks. Since the cat won’t care that Steve’s crying and nobody else is here, Steve doesn’t even try to hide his tears. He misses Bucky so much that his heart feels like it’s being torn to shreds.

He’s so overwhelmed with grief that he gets a shock when he glances up and sees the cat sitting just a few feet away from him. It’s staring at him intently and not moving.

Sniffing and wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, Steve gives the cat a watery smile. “I’m okay, buddy. I’m just a bit sad. I lost the love of my life today. My best friend, my other half, my everything. His name was—”

That’s when the cat stands up and very cautiously walks towards Steve. It’s moving one paw at a time as it slinks along, as if it’s terrified but very determined to get to where it wants to go.

Steve sniffs and stops crying as he stares at the cat. His breathing is still hitching from his crying, but he tries to stay as still as he can.

When the cat reaches Steve’s legs, it cautiously sniffs his pants before slowly climbing onto Steve’s legs. It’s claws aren’t out anymore and Steve stays frozen, letting the cat continue its careful exploration.

The cat doesn’t seem to like the squishiness of walking on Steve’s legs because it presses each paw very carefully onto his fabric covered legs before it shifts more weight on the leg and only then does it moves its next leg.

Eventually, the cat’s front paws are pressed into Steve’s stomach. Still moving slowly, the cat climbs up Steve’s chest, using its front paws to go up until it’s standing with its back legs on Steve’s legs, staring into Steve’s face, its ears pricked up and its whiskers and nose twitching.

Steve is barely breathing, staring into the cat’s green eyes.

They stare at each other in silence, until the cat cautiously takes one of its paws off Steve’s chest and gently presses it to Steve’s cheek. Its claws aren’t out and Steve can feel the little pads on the bottom of the cat’s foot, cool against his cheek.

The cat keeps itself braced against Steve’s chest and legs as it lifts the paw on Steve’s cheek and gently touches different spots on Steve’s face.

It feels…like the cat is trying to wipe Steve’s tears for him?

The cat stares at Steve, then tilts its head and lets out a quizzical sounding meow.

Steve is holding his breath, his mind racing. What does this mean? Is this behavior normal for cats? Or could it mean…could it mean…

_Could it mean…_

“Buck?” Steve whispers. “Is that you in there?”

The cat lets out another meow, louder this time, staring intently at Steve.

Could it have worked?! Is it really Bucky in there?!

But wait, wait, wait. Steve has to make sure. But how? Bucky can’t talk. But hadn’t Shuri said that Bucky should be able to understand Steve?

That gives Steve an idea. “Buck, if that’s you in there, then tap my cheek four times.”

Holding his breath, Steve stares at the cat.

Adjusting its back legs on Steve’s lap, the cat braces itself and gently but firmly taps its paw against Steve’s cheek.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

It’s really…it’s really…it’s really…

“Buck?” Steve whispers, his voice barely working. He feels a new rush of tears coming on, but these are different kind of tears.

The cat lets out a different kind of meow, its tail twitching as the little paw wipes at Steve’s tears. It seems to be worried.

Steve lets out a laugh through his tears. “It’s okay, these are happy tears now. Happy tears. Oh, my God, I can’t believe it worked! It’s really you in there, ain’t it?”

The cat—Bucky—meows again and slowly nods his head. To make sure Steve really gets it, Bucky taps Steve’s cheek four times again. Then he carefully switches paws and taps Steve’s other cheek four times, making Steve laugh with relief and joy.

A rush of happiness fills Steve and he barely restrains himself from grabbing Bucky and squeezing him. He doesn’t know how comfortable Bucky is in his new body and he doesn’t want to scare him.

Now that Steve knows it’s really Bucky in there, he’s desperate to see how Bucky feels about the situation. No matter how happy Steve is to have Bucky back—even if it’s in cat form—it’s Bucky choice whether to stay like this for the time being or go back into his human body.

“Buck, are you okay with this? I mean—the whole cat thing. I just thought it would give you the chance to live a little until we get things figured out. But we can put you back into your human body if you want. Do you wanna go back into your human body? We’d have to put you back into cryo but—”

Bucky lets out an annoyed sounding meow and firmly shakes his head.

Steve can’t stop smiling. “So you’re okay with this? I was so damn worried that I made the wrong—”

Bucky cuts off his words by putting his paw right on Steve’s lips. Removing his paw from Steve’s lips, Bucky shifts closer and rubs the top of his soft furry head on Steve’s chin.

The relief and joy Steve’s feeling is overwhelming, especially after all the sadness he’s lived with recently.

Bucky rubs his head under Steve’s chin and his cold nose touches Steve’s neck. Then Bucky drops down on all four legs and carefully pokes his paws around on Steve’s legs before lying down and curling up on Steve’s lap.

Staring down at Bucky on his lap, Steve raises one hand, desperately wanting to touch him. But he hesitates right before he touches Bucky’s head.

“Can I—can I touch you, Buck?” He doesn’t want to use the word ‘pet’. It just sounds too strange.

Bucky nods and cranes his neck up, bumping his face into Steve’s hand and rubbing his face against Steve’s palm, meowing happily.

That’s all the invitation Steve needs and he gently rubs Bucky’s neck. Bringing his other hand around, he shows it to Bucky. “Can I use both hands?”

Another nod, then Bucky goes back to rubbing his face into Steve’s hand.

Slowly, Steve lays his free hand onto Bucky’s back and gently runs it along his soft, black fur.

Bucky lets out a soft meow and Steve can feel that Bucky’s started vibrating. In fact, when he listens closely, he can hear that Bucky’s started purring.

Grinning, Steve suddenly knows they’re going to be alright. No matter what happens in the future, he’s got Bucky back and he’ll take care of Bucky for the rest of Bucky’s life, no matter how long or short that will be.


	3. Chapter 3

They sit together for about an hour and Steve’s so happy that he could stay right here for the rest of his life. Bucky gradually sprawls out on Steve’s lap as he gets more comfortable with the situation and keeps purring happily.

Eventually, there’s a quiet knock on the door. Bucky startles and wedges himself against Steve’s stomach.

Steve automatically wraps his arms around Bucky, petting him soothingly. “It’s okay. We’re in the medical center so I think folks are getting a bit worried about us. We should let ‘em in so they can see we’re okay.”

Bucky lets out a meow, but he doesn’t seem scared, just annoyed. He looks up at Steve, as if to say that he doesn’t want to deal with any other people today.

Steve smiles down at him. “I know you don’t wanna deal with ‘em, but the faster we get this over with, the faster I can bring you to our apartment and we can go back to relaxing.”

That seems to do the trick. Bucky lets out a resigned sounding meow, then stands up and climbs off Steve’s lap.

Pushing himself to his feet, Steve opens the door a crack and sees the worried faces of Shuri and the rest of the medical staff. He feels a bit guilty over having spent an hour on the floor with Bucky while they were worried about them, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to think about anybody except himself and Bucky.

“Hi. We’re both okay,” he tells them.

Shuri looks anxious and she’s staring at him with wide eyes. “Is he Bucky?”

He grins. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s definitely Bucky. It worked.”

Shuri lets out a cheer and does a little dance, while the other medical staff look relieved, clap and let out sounds of joy.

Steve glances down at Bucky, who’s standing right by Steve’s feet, staying behind him but peering suspiciously through Steve’s legs and the opening in the door. “They’re happy that you’re okay, pal. You wanna come out and say hello? These are the people who helped make this possible.”

Bucky gives a nod and Steve pulls the door open and walks out, Bucky cautiously following him.

Everybody quiets down as Bucky comes out of the room. Shuri’s grin could power the entire city and she drops down to her knees and holds out her hands.

“Hello, Bucky! It’s so nice to see you again!”

“Shuri was the one who came up with this whole idea and made the technology to make it happen. Without her, none of this would have been possible,” Steve tells Bucky.

Bucky’s looking up at Steve while he’s talking, then he looks around the people in the room and his gaze comes to rest on Shuri. Padding up to her, Bucky braces his front legs on her knees, cranes his neck up and rubs his face against Shuri’s.

Shuri lets out a delighted laugh and rubs her face against Bucky’s. “I’m happy to see you too!”

Then Bucky pulls his head back and slowly puts his paw on Shuri’s cheek, staring at her intently. He lets out a series of meows, sounding very serious.

Shuri smiles. “You’re welcome. I hope you will be happy.”

Bucky nods before rubbing his face against hers again.

Steve grins as he watches them. Even in cat form, Bucky Barnes has no problems communicating with people. Unlike Steve, who has a hard time socializing with anybody, never mind what body he’s in.

Next, the medical staff need to do an exam on Bucky, just to make sure his vital signs are strong and there aren’t any physical issues. When Steve picks Bucky up so he can put him up on the exam table, Bucky lets out an annoyed whine and shoves at Steve’s arms with his paws until he puts him down again. “You don’t want me to pick you up?”

Bucky shakes his head, giving Steve an unimpressed look.

Okay, fine. He used to hate it when Bucky had to pick him up to carry him when he was sick or tired, so he completely understands that Bucky wants to move under his own power.

The medical staff don’t seem to mind. They sit on the floor and ask Bucky to approach them one by one as they show him the medical equipment they’ll use on him and they complete their testing and discuss the results as a group.

To Steve—and probably Bucky’s—relief, Bucky’s cat body is in perfect health, except for being underweight due to the cat’s previous illness and the hard life it had led up to this point. Well, Steve will start working on that problem as soon as they’re home and Bucky will be up to a healthy weight in no time.

Once Bucky has thanked each of the medical staff who were involved in the staff—and thanked Shuri again—he finds Steve and sits by his feet, meowing up at him.

Steve smiles. “You ready to go home?”

Bucky nods.

“Are we okay to leave?” Steve asks the head veterinarian.

She smiles. “Absolutely! I would like Bucky to come back for a check-up in a week, and if there are any problems then please call me right away. Day or night.”

Steve smiles, feeling overwhelmed with how much all of these people care about Bucky—and indirectly, Steve. “I will, thank you.”

*             *             *

Once they’ve walked back to Steve’s apartment—with Bucky trotting along next to Steve—Steve lets Bucky inside and gives him a tour of the place, showing him the rooms and leaving him to look around. Bucky seems determined to sniff and touch every piece of furniture in the place, so Steve sits down on the couch in the living area and watches Bucky explore.

That’s when it occurs to him that he’d completely forgotten about the fact that he’s now living with cat-Bucky, not human-Bucky! Cats usually use a litter box, don’t they? And they eat special cat food. And they have special cat toys.

But it’s still Bucky in there. Would Bucky want to use a litter box? Would he just start using it out of instinct? Should Steve take Bucky with him to buy one so he can choose? And where is Bucky supposed to go to the bathroom until then?!

Oh, he’s screwed this up already! He’s been responsible for taking care of Bucky for five minutes and he’s already made a mess out of it.

His thoughts are abruptly interrupted by the sound of the toilet flushing.

The sound is normal enough that it registers, but it takes a few seconds until he realizes how bizarre that sound is. Steve is the only human in the apartment and he didn’t flush the toilet. So…

…

He twists on the couch and stares in the direction of the bathroom. He’d left the door wide open so Bucky could explore, but now the door is only open a crack. A minute later, Bucky’s head appears and Steve can see him using his paw to nudge the door open wide enough to squeeze through.

Steve stares at him. “Did you just use the toilet?!”

Bucky slowly saunters over to Steve and lightly jumps up on the couch. Sitting down next to Steve, he casually winds his tail around himself and tilts his head at Steve, like Steve is the world’s biggest idiot.

Steve narrows his eyes. “Jerk. I was just asking a question.”

Bucky meows in response, and Steve knows— _he knows_ —that Bucky just said ‘punk’.

That’s when Steve starts laughing and that overwhelming happiness and relief from earlier comes flooding back. He opens his arms. “Com’ere, Buck.”

Standing up, Bucky hurries onto Steve’s lap and stands up on his back legs as he drapes his front legs over Steve’s shoulders, his front pressed against Steve’s chest. Adjusting himself carefully, Bucky curls his front legs so they’re wrapped around Steve’s neck and he rubs his head under Steve’s chin, meowing happily and his cold nose brushing Steve’s neck.

Blinking back tears, Steve gently wraps his hands around Bucky’s little body and strokes his soft, dark fur, cradling his warm body against his own.

“I love you, Buck,” he whispers, kissing the top of Bucky’s furry head.

Bucky responds immediately, meowing several times and tightening his grip around Steve’s neck.

*             *             *

When it comes time to make them dinner, Steve has another moment of indecision. He knows Bucky’s cat body needs cat food, no matter what Bucky would prefer. But he has no idea what cats can actually eat, so that requires some research. To his relief, he discovers that cats can eat a lot of the same meats and vegetables that humans can and he decides to make them chicken with vegetables.

While Steve is in the kitchen, Bucky winds his way through Steve’s legs and meows impatiently.

“What?” Steve looks down at him.

Another impatient meow, then Bucky stands up against the kitchen cupboards, bracing his paws on them.

“You wanna come up on the counter?”

Bucky nods and Steve shots him a mock-glare. “You don’t trust me to cook, huh? Is that it? You need to supervise?”

An arrogant sounding meow and a firm nod are his answers.

“Okay, fine. You gonna jump up here?” Steve knows cats can jump up and down impressive heights, but the way Bucky shakes his head, lets Steve know that maybe he isn’t ready for that.

It occurs to Steve that maybe he’ll have to help Bucky get accustomed to using his new cat body. Ironically, that’s something Steve can relate to. Even walking was difficult for him when he got his new body, so Bucky’s already doing much better than Steve was after the serum. But jumping onto a kitchen counter is a much bigger deal than jumping onto the couch, so they’ll leave that for another day.

“Can I lift you up?”

After Bucky nods, Steve bends down and gently wraps his hands around Bucky’s sides, right underneath his front legs, lifts him up and puts him on the counter.

Once his feet are under him, Bucky wanders off to explore the counter surface, and Steve goes to the fridge to pull out what they need. When he’s taken out the ingredients for their dinner, he puts them down on the counter and Bucky hurries over to sniff them.

When Bucky meows suspiciously and nudges the Wakandan vegetables with his paw, Steve smiles. “They’re Wakandan vegetables.” He points at each one and tells him what they’re called. Bucky studies them intently and keeps sniffing at them while Steve talks, but he seems to be listening.

“The purple one tastes kind of like broccoli and also cauliflower, and the yellow round things taste like carrots. I think you’ll like ‘em, but if you don’t, you can just have the chicken for tonight, okay?”

Bucky meows a bit more, but lies down after he’s done sniffing them, which seems to indicate he’s willing to give them a try.

When Steve’s done cooking, he prepares them both plates of food and grabs cutlery for both of them. “Gimme a sec, Buck. I’ll put this on the table and then I’ll lift you down.”

Hurrying to the table, he puts down their food, then goes back to the counter and lifts Bucky down to the floor. Bucky follows him to the table and Steve looks down at him.

“You wanna sit on the table to eat?”

Bucky nods and Steve lifts him up onto the table. Sitting down on his own chair, Steve picks up his cutlery and notices Bucky staring at him, his tail twitching with annoyance.

“What? You didn’t even try the vegetables yet, quit making—”

Bucky very deliberately nudges the fork and knife Steve had put down for him and stares at Steve.

Steve bursts out laughing. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry! I completely forgot!” But from Bucky’s annoyed glare, he doesn’t seem to think it’s funny.

Swallowing his laughter, Steve gets back up and stares down at Bucky’s plate of food. He realizes Bucky might be able to eat the bigger chunks, but it’ll take him forever and he’d make a mess, which Bucky will hate. “You want me to cut up your food for you?”

Bucky nods.

“I think it’ll be easiest if I make a mush out of it. Then you can eat small mouthfuls. What do you think?”

Bucky lets out an annoyed meow, but nods.

“I know it ain’t perfect, but nobody’s gonna be looking at you eating except for me. And you know I ain’t gonna care if you get a little messy.”

Staring down at his plate of food, Bucky seems to think it over. Then he finally nods.

“Thanks, Buck. You’re a peach.” Sliding Bucky’s plate close to him, Steve cuts everything into small pieces and mushes them flat with his fork, making nice little piles for everything.

“This good?”

Bucky walks over and stares down at the food. Bending down, he uses his nose to nudge the chicken bits closer to the vegetable piles. Then he looks up at Steve again and meows.

“You want everything mixed together?”

A nod.

“Yeah, you’re right, that’ll make things easier.”

Steve mixes everything together, creating a big pile. “There. That good?”

Bucky studies the plate from all angles and nods. Steve slides the plate back to Bucky’s side of the table and sits down.

Following his plate, Bucky stands over it and slowly bends down to sniff at the food. Very tentatively, he licks up a small mouthful and chews. He lets out a pleased sounding meow and goes back for another bite, taking a bigger mouthful.

Steve smiles as he watches Bucky eat. They’ll get him up to a healthy weight in no time.

Then Bucky looks up at Steve and meows at him.

“What? You don’t like it? Want me to make you something else?”

Bucky walks across the table and very deliberately shoves Steve’s plate closer to Steve. Then he walks to the fork and nudges that closer to Steve too. He repeats the process with the knife. Then he sits down and stares at Steve expectantly.

Steve smiles. “You want me to eat too, huh?”

Bucky nods.

Steve’s heart glows. “Okay, okay. I’m going. Jesus.” Picking up his fork and knife, Steve cuts a big piece of chicken and sticks it into his mouth. Once he’s chewed and swallowed, he smiles at Bucky. “See? I’m eating.”

Bucky keeps sitting there, staring at him impassively. His only response is a tail twitch.

“Alright, alright. More eating, Rogers. I got it.” Steve digs into his dinner and focuses on eating.

Bucky stays there for a while longer, probably so he can nag Steve again if he stops eating. Finally, he must be satisfied that Steve is really eating because he goes back to his plate and starts eating again.

Eventually, Bucky lies down on the table, making himself comfortable. But every few bites, he looks over at Steve to make sure he’s still eating.

*             *             *

After dinner, they spend a little time watching television. Bucky curls up on Steve’s lap as soon as they’re on the couch and stares off into space. As for Steve, he spends the entire time staring down at Bucky as he pets his soft, black fur and scratches him under his chin, so neither of them actually care what’s playing on the television.

Bucky doesn’t want to let Steve out of his sight, which means when Steve goes to have a shower before bed, Bucky comes into the bathroom with him and hops up on the low toilet seat and sits there while Steve showers. Steve can see him through the fogged up glass of the shower door, and it makes him feel like Bucky’s watching over him. When he’s done, Steve brushes his teeth and then they go into the bedroom to sleep.

Steve lifts Bucky onto the bed and lets him explore and sniff the pillow and blanket while Steve gets his pajamas on. “Okay, pal. Time for sleep. If you wanna sleep somewhere else, just wake me up and I’ll lift you down, okay?”

Bucky lifts his head where he’s sniffing the pillow and gives Steve a look that seems to suggest Steve is an idiot.

Steve grins. He’d been desperately hoping that Bucky would be comfortable sharing a bed with him, but he didn’t want to push him. Lying down, Steve pulls the blanket up over him and lies down on his side, holding up one arm.

“You coming?”

Bucky pads over and slides underneath Steve’s arm. Lying down, he snuggles up against Steve, his fuzzy head underneath Steve’s chin.

Bringing his arm down, Steve gently wraps it around Bucky, cradling his soft, warm body close. Bucky’s purring, making his entire body vibrate and Steve is so happy that he might explode.

“Good night, Buck,” he whispers, kissing the top of Bucky’s head.

Bucky lets out a meow and wedges himself even closer to Steve.

Steve stays awake for a few hours, just enjoying the feel of Bucky slowly relaxing and falling asleep, breathing calmly and surrounded by warmth and safety.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Steve decides they should start teaching Bucky how to use his new body right away. The faster Bucky learns, the more independent he can be.

“I think we should spend time getting you used to jumping up and down from high places,” he tells Bucky while they’re eating breakfast.

Bucky doesn’t respond as he’s eating his breakfast, but Steve knows he’d heard him.

Well, thankfully, Steve knows exactly how to make Bucky agree to things. “It’s for safety, Buck. If I lift you up somewhere and something happens to me, you won’t feel safe getting down on your own to get help.”

Bucky freezes and stares at Steve. Then he’s nodding and meowing very loudly and Steve struggles not to smirk in triumph. He’s known Bucky Barnes for way too long not to know exactly how to get him to do what Steve wants.

After breakfast, Steve tells him they should practice the jumping right away. Bucky meows, not sounding excited, but follows Steve as he goes to the couch.

They start small, having Bucky jumping up and down from the couch and chairs to get him warmed up. Then Steve has him jump from the coffee table to the couch and back. That goes fine. Jumping from the ground to a chair and from the chair to the table goes well too, but jumping onto the table from the ground makes Bucky freeze.

“You can do it, Buck! I know you can. I know it seems like it’s real high, but your body can jump so much higher than you even know.”

Bucky freezes and Steve can see him tensing and shifting around, eyeing the top of the table, but he’s hesitating.

“Hang on, let me try something.” Steve grabs a large serving tray from the kitchen and brings it over. “You wanna try jumping from this? I can lift it up and then lower it slowly.”

Bucky meows in a way that indicates he doesn’t seem to think it’ll work, but once he’s climbed on and Steve holds the tray level with the table, Bucky easily jumps across to the table.

“Great job, Buck! Now come back.”

Walking back and forth across the table, Bucky seems to be carefully assessing the distance he has to cover and the exact spot to jump from. The longer he takes, the more hesitant he seems to get.

“Don’t think about it, just jump. Your body knows how to do it. It’s just your mind thinking you can’t do it.”

Bucky continues to hesitate, peering off the edge of the table and meowing as he looks across at the tray in Steve’s hands.

“You wanna stop for today?”

That makes Bucky quickly shake his head.

Okay, so Steve just has to think of something else. “How about I count down from three? Then you can stop thinking and just jump when I’ve reach one.”

Bucky considers that, then nods.

“Okay…three…two…one!”

And Bucky leaps from the table and lands on the large tray in Steve’s arms.

“Oh, you did great! See, I knew you could do it. How about I lower the tray a bit and you jump up to the table?”

Bucky agrees to that and after Steve counts down, he jumps up onto the table with ease. The counting seems to keep Bucky’s uncertainty at bay and he effortlessly jumps back and forth from the tray to the table and back, all the way until Steve finally puts the tray on the ground with Bucky sitting in the middle of it.

“Alright, Buck. You can do it, you know you can. Three…two…one!”

And Bucky leaps up and onto the table, landing without a sound. He immediately turns around and meows loudly at Steve.

“You did it! Oh, that was awesome!” He’s holding arms open and Bucky must be as happy with his accomplishments as Steve because Bucky jumps from the table right into Steve’s arms.

Steve easily catches him and feels Bucky’s claws digging into his shirt to anchor himself. Wrapping his arms around Bucky, Steve cradles him close, holding Bucky securely in his arms and rubbing his face against Bucky’s.

“Look at you! I’m so proud of you, Buck!” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s head while Bucky happily rubs his head against Steve’s chest, purring and meowing happily.

*             *             *

Two days later, they’re playing one of their favorite new games. Steve had made Bucky a ball out of aluminum foil and he throws it somewhere in the apartment and he and Bucky go chasing after it, batting or kicking it further away when they get close to it, preventing the other one from coming in contact with it.

Steve has just kicked the ball towards the bedroom, and he groans when he realizes it’s gonna go underneath the bed again.

“Oh, damn it!” He races after it, but Bucky beats him to it, streaking past him and diving underneath the bed to get at the ball before Steve can get at it.

Once he’s in the bedroom, Steve throws himself to the floor and desperately reaches his hands underneath the bed, but Bucky’s already crawled underneath and he bats the ball, sending it flying out from under the bed, but on the opposite side of where Steve is.

Steve laughs. “Shit! Damn you, Barnes!”

It takes Steve way too long get himself out from under the bed, and by that time, Bucky’s already smacked the ball back into the main living area. Stumbling to his feet, Steve runs out of the room, spying Bucky racing after the ball that’s rolling into the kitchen.

Bucky’s way faster than Steve and he uses his small size fully to his advantage to dart under and around furniture that takes Steve longer to navigate around.

Steve also spends way more time laughing and swearing than Bucky, so it’s no wonder that the game always ends with Steve collapsed in a heap on the floor. Eventually, Bucky always comes wandering over, the ball in his mouth and he climbs onto his chest, sitting down and dropping the ball onto Steve’s chest.

And Steve can always tell the jerk is smirking at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You won. Congratulations to you. Jerk.”

Bucky lets out a smug meow and lies down, stretching out on Steve’s chest and rubbing his head under Steve’s chin.

That always prompts Steve to wrap his arms around him and they spend a while cuddling on the ground.

*             *             *

Steve’s sitting on the couch, working on his Wakandan language program and Bucky’s napping next to him. He’s sprawled out on his back, sleeping peacefully and Steve often pauses the program to stare down at him. Without fail, he always finds himself smiling when he sees him.

It’s so nice to see Bucky finally at peace and feeling safe and happy.

When he finishes today’s lesson, he thinks about starting on another new project he’d been thinking about. While Steve has several places he can comfortably sit in the apartment—the couch, the chairs at the table, his desk in the corner—Bucky doesn’t have as many options. Steve had looked online and he’d seen that people can buy cat trees, which are multi-leveled structures covered in soft padding. They also have scratching posts that cats can use to stretch their arms and legs and Steve’s read that it’s very important for cats to have such things. A cat tree would solve both of those issues.

Steve puts the computer down and leans over Bucky with a smile. Rubbing his hand along the soft fur on Bucky’s belly, Steve wiggles him a bit.

“Hey, sleepy.”

Bucky opens his eyes and sleepily stares at Steve, his eyes half-lidded.

“You wanna look at cat trees on the computer with me? I think you’d like one. They’ve got those scratching posts I told you about.”

Moving with exaggerated slowness, Bucky yawns and extends his arms and legs, splaying his toes as he stretches. Slowly rolling over, he gets to his feet and climbs onto Steve’s lap, making himself comfortable as he lies down.

Steve rubs his soft fur for a while and scratches Bucky behind his ears, which Bucky absolutely loves. “Okay, let’s get the computer back over here and we can look at cat trees.”

Holding onto Bucky with one hand, Steve reaches over for his computer and puts it on the couch next to them, tilting the screen so they can both see.

Bucky sleepily snuggles against Steve’s stomach and yawns again.

“Can you see the screen good?”

Bucky nods.

Finding a nearby pet shop’s website, Steve scrolls through the cat trees. “Oh, look at this one. It’s got three scratching posts and two levels. You like that?”

Bucky meows and shakes his head.

“Okay, fine. Let’s find another one. How about this one? It’s got posts, two levels and it’s got a little cubby hole that you can nap in.”

Another head shake.

“What’s wrong with ‘em? You want scratching posts, right?”

A nod.

“Then what—” Oh, Steve knows the problem. “You want a taller one?”

A nod and an enthusiastic meow.

So Steve focuses his search on the larger trees. Bucky sits up and gets more interested when Steve shows him the bigger trees and Steve smiles as he slowly scrolls through the options.

As Steve knew he would, Bucky lets out a meow and raises his paw at the screen when Steve shows him a ridiculously huge, five level cat tree that’s basically two trees next to each other and connected by padded platforms and hammocks made from fuzzy blankets. It’s got multiple cubby holes, scratching posts on three of the five levels, the levels are connected with ladders, and ropes with various toys attached are hanging in different spots.

Laughing, Steve grabs Bucky’s paw and shakes it in agreement. The description says that such a tree would be good for about four cats, but Steve doesn’t even think about talking Bucky down to a smaller one. “That’s the one? That’s what you want?”

Lots of enthusiastic meowing and nodding.

“Alright, let’s buy it.” He puts in the order and the website says it’ll be delivered tomorrow. “You’ll have your new mansion tomorrow.”

Bucky stands up and walks his paws up Steve’s chest until he’s staring right into his face. Bucky meows softly and nuzzles Steve’s face with his own, then wraps his front legs around Steve’s neck and plasters himself against Steve, his tail swishing back and forth.

Steve wraps his hands around Bucky and struggles not to cry. “You’re welcome, Buck.”

*             *             *

The cat tree is wonderful. Up to now, Bucky had been following Steve everywhere, no matter where he went in the apartment. Steve doesn’t mind, but he thought Bucky was probably doing it because he didn’t like not being able to see where Steve was.

But when Steve puts the cat tree right in the center of the living area, Bucky can lie on the top levels and easily see Steve no matter where he goes in the apartment. The bedroom door is always left propped open anyway and they start doing the same thing with the bathroom door. Bucky likes to lean the bathroom door partially closed when he’s using the toilet, but Steve doesn’t mind keeping it open when he’s in there because he knows it makes Bucky feel better when he can see him.

Whether Steve is showering or doing anything else in the bathroom or he’s cooking in the kitchen area or folding laundry in the bedroom, all Bucky has to do is slightly shift his position on the cat tree and he can easily keep an eye on Steve.

Bucky loves climbing up and down the levels and the more he practices jumping up and down from places, the more comfortable he gets at leaping from the ground up to the higher levels of the tree or even leaping from the cat tree to the couch or into Steve’s arms.

Steve gets accustomed to hearing the sound of Bucky scratching at the rope covered posts or the tingling of bells as Bucky lies on his back under one of the ropes that’s got some bells on it and bats at it.

*             *             *

About two weeks after the transfer, Steve notices Bucky acting strangely one morning. They’d eaten breakfast at the table, then Steve had sat down at his desk to send his grocery order to the palace kitchen and Bucky usually curls up on the couch for a post-breakfast nap.

But this time, Bucky’s pacing around underneath the desk and winding his way through Steve’s legs and the legs of the chair, meowing impatiently and his twitching tail smacking against Steve’s legs.

“What’s the matter? You want more food? You heard the vet: you’re gaining weight real well, but you’re not supposed to overdo it.”

When Bucky won’t stop meowing and pacing, Steve finishes his order and pushes his chair back, looking down at him. “What?”

He knows Bucky doesn’t want to play, since he’d have brought the ball or one of their other handmade toys over, which means he has no idea what Bucky’s problem is.

Now that Steve is paying attention to him, Bucky races over to the apartment front door and stands up to brace his front paws against it, his tail swinging back and forth as he meows loudly.

Steve understands. “You wanna go outside?”

Bucky nods and meows again.

They haven’t left their apartment except to go back to the medical center in the palace for Bucky’s check-up. It’s nerve-wracking to think about Bucky wandering around outside the apartment, but if they go together, it should be fine. It hadn’t even occurred to him to spend more time outside their apartment—he’s spent almost all his time in here since he’d arrived in Wakanda.

“Alright, let’s go for a walk.”

Steve stands up and grabs his jacket and security scan card. When he reaches Bucky at the front door, he gives him a stern look. “But you gotta stay close to me, okay? No running off to go exploring on your own.”

That makes Bucky respond with an annoyed meow.

“Yeah, yeah, meow at me all you want, but you gotta remember how small you are now. People might not notice you’re there so you could get hurt. Promise you’ll stay close to me?”

Bucky’s tail twitches, but he nods.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Opening the front door, Steve lets Bucky go out first, then follows him and makes sure the door is locked behind him. Bucky’s already trotting down the hallway ahead of him, but then he seems to remember his earlier promise and circles back around to sit by Steve’s feet and look up at him.

Steve smiles. “Thanks, Buck. You’re a peach. Well? You pick the direction you wanna go. We can explore the palace a bit and see what we find.”

Bucky looks both ways down the hallway and heads off in one direction with Steve trailing after him.

They wind their way through various hallways, Steve telling Bucky what the different areas are used for. There are some rooms that Steve’s security card won’t let them access, but when they find rooms they can enter and they’re empty, Steve lets Bucky inside and they poke around a bit.

They greet everybody they meet and Steve practices the Wakandan phrases he’d learned—even though most people in the palace speak English fluently—and everybody’s thrilled to see Bucky. Some people recognize Steve and they know who Bucky is, but others just assume Bucky is a normal cat. In either case, Bucky is always friendly with them and everybody loves him.

Some things never change.

Eventually, they get to a door that leads to the gardens located behind the palace. Steve’s been out here a few times and when they’re walking amongst the plants and trees, he remembers why he’d enjoyed coming out here before.

It’s wonderful to be surrounded by so much green. Colorful plants are everywhere, tall trees tower over them and the sounds of birds chirping and other critters making sounds surround them. They find a small stream and follow it, making their way along the cobblestoned pathway.

Bucky’s loving it, trotting along beside Steve, looking at everything and stopping to sniff interesting looking plants.

“It’s real nice out here, huh? Peaceful.”

Bucky nods and meows.

Steve still can’t get over seeing so much greenery everywhere. There had been a few parks in Brooklyn, but those trees had looked nothing like these ones. Here, the trees are covered in enormous green leaves, thick vines and large flowers from top to bottom.

The pathway they’re on eventually leads them to an open clearing, filled with tables and chairs, and to Steve’s surprise, T’Challa is sitting at one of the tables, reading a book.

“T’Challa!”

T’Challa glances up and smiles when he sees them. “Steve! Bucky! What a pleasant surprise!” Standing up, he gestures at the two chairs close to him. “Please, sit down.”

Steve feels bad about intruding in the King’s quiet time and when he looks down at Bucky, he sees Bucky seems to have the same thoughts. “We don’t wanna disturb you. We were just out for a walk.”

T’Challa waves a hand. “You’re not disturbing me. My book will wait, but the company of good friends must be appreciated whenever one gets the opportunity, especially with my schedule. Please, sit.”

Steve has a seat and Bucky jumps up on the other chair and lies down.

“I’m very happy to see both of you again. The veterinarian sent me a report of your check-up, Bucky, and things are looking very good.”

Bucky meows and nods.

“How are you feeling?”

Bucky meows happily and T’Challa laughs and glances at Steve. “Am I correct to assume that’s a happy response?”

Steve grins. “Oh, yeah.”

“And you, Steve? How are you?”

“I…can’t even find the right words to tell you how happy I am. It feels like I can finally breathe again.”

T’Challa smiles kindly. “I’m glad.” Then he claps his hands. “So, tell me how things have been in the last two weeks.”

They catch up the King with what they’ve been doing, with Steve doing the talking and Bucky emphasizing certain parts with different types of meows.

Once they’re done, T’Challa asks them something surprising. “So, have you two explored the city yet?”

“Actually, this is our first trip outside the apartment. I was a little worried about Bucky being out here.”

“That’s understandable. But if you enjoy being in the garden, then you might enjoy going for bigger hikes. We have very many hiking trails outside the city.”

Steve exchanges a look with Bucky and he can tell without Bucky saying anything that he finds the idea as appealing as Steve does. It’s wonderful being surrounded by this much nature and doing it more often would be fun. And it would be good exercise for both of them. Before Bucky’s transfer, Steve had been using the gym facilities in the palace, but he’d always enjoyed exercising outside more. Now that he’s got his desire to live life back, going for a hike sounds wonderful.

But…

“If the trails are outside the city, what would be the best way to get there?”

“You can always ask one of my drivers to take you.”

Steve makes a face. “We’re…not really comfortable with that. I don’t wanna make extra work for somebody.”

Especially since he and Bucky have already spent months living off T’Challa’s kindness, which included paying for Bucky’s enormous cat tree and all their other expenses. Steve isn’t working and they’re not contributing anything back to the palace or Wakanda in general. The last thing Steve wants to do is take even more advantage of the situation.

Thankfully, T’Challa doesn’t argue with him. “If you prefer to make your own way, you can take the sky train.”

Steve blinks. “Sky train?”

“Yes. It’s part of our public transit system. Very similar to your…what do you call it?...Oh, the subway!”

A grin lights up his face as soon as Steve hears that word. He exchanges a look with Bucky, and he’s nodding and meowing happily, just as excited as Steve. But that presents other problems. “Uh, are cats allowed on the sky train?”

T’Challa makes a face. “Technically…no. Well, they’re permitted but only if they’re confined to a traveling cage. But—” T’Challa gets a mischievous smile on his face. “—if you go early in the morning, the sky train employees don’t check the trains very thoroughly at that time.”

Steve smiles, feeling amused. “And how exactly do you know that?”

T’Challa laughs. “Because I love going on the sky train but I understand it’s a safety and logistical nightmare for me to use it. So I don’t tell anybody where I’m going and if I go in the early mornings, nobody notices me. I’ve been doing it since I was a young boy.”

Steve grins and Bucky is meowing in amusement.

“Please don’t tell my mother. She’ll have a heart attack and I’ll get yelled at.”

Steve lets out a laugh. “I guess we can all keep each other’s secrets safe.”

T’Challa nods. “Deal. But I do advise getting a carrier that you can put Bucky into while you’re entering and exiting the sky train station, but you should be fine once you’re on the train.”

*             *             *

They’re both very excited about the idea of riding the subway together again, so when they’re back in the apartment, Steve orders a small pet carrier from the pet store website.

Bucky meows and complains about it, but Steve hushes him. “I know you hate the idea, but nobody understands you’re you, Buck. They just think you’re a normal cat and I wouldn’t feel safe either if people could bring their crazy dogs or cats on the subway. We gotta follow the rules when we’re around other people. But if nobody’s watching, we can do what we want.”

The bag arrives the next day and Steve makes Bucky practice getting in and out of it. It has a zippered cloth lid on top and the walls are covered in mesh fabric that allows Bucky to breathe, but visibility through the mesh isn’t great. Bucky isn’t happy about it, but after sniffing it carefully, he carefully climbs inside, turns in a few circles and lies down, curling up while his tail twitches unhappily.

Steve smiles down at him. “See? It ain’t so bad, is it?”

His only response is a glare and another tail twitch.

Struggling to suppress a laugh, Steve reaches in and soothingly scratches behind Bucky’s ears. “Focus on the bigger picture, Barnes. Tomorrow, we’re gonna ride the subway together for the first time in a very long time.”

And that makes Bucky let out a happy meow again.

*             *             *

As a precaution, Steve thinks it’s a good idea for him and Bucky to try walking to the subway station that afternoon. Neither of them had left the palace grounds on their own since they’d arrived in Wakanda and Steve wants to make sure there won’t be any problems.

“We’re just gonna go out, walk to the sky train station and come back, okay?”

Bucky nods his approval and off they go, heading towards the palace gates. Steve introduces himself and Bucky to the palace guards as they scan his security pass, since Steve’s sure they’ll be seeing much more of the guards now that they’re being more adventurous.

Once they’re given permission to leave, they step out into the hustle and bustle of the city.

The contrast between the tranquillity of the palace and the loud chaos of the city is jarring. People are walking everywhere, pushing carts, hurrying through the crowds, leading children by the hand; cars, motorcycles and hover cars zip around every which way, large billboards are flashing colorful advertisements on the side of buildings and tall skyscrapers tower over them. Cars are honking, people are talking and loud music is coming from cars passing by.

It all makes Steve miss Brooklyn, but he hears Bucky let out a whine and he feels Bucky winding his way through Steve’s legs. When he looks down, Bucky has pressed his face against Steve’s leg and his tail is curled around it.

“Oh, Buck. It’s a little too much for you, ain’t it?” He feels bad that he hadn’t anticipated Bucky feeling overwhelmed by this. Since Bucky is so much smaller and closer to the ground now, the activity around him and the size of the buildings and vehicles must look very scary. That’s one thing Steve had forgotten about: it’s late afternoon so everybody must be coming home from work now, making the city even more crowded and noisy than it usually is.

As Steve kneels down on the ground, Bucky climbs up his pants and shirt, digging his claws in and meowing fearfully up at Steve with wide eyes.

“It’s okay, Buck. I’m right here. Come here.” He scoops Bucky into his arms and holds him tight, letting Bucky burrow his head into the crook of Steve’s elbow, his little body trembling. Kissing Bucky’s head, Steve keeps his lips pressed against his soft fur as he mutters calming words and pets him. Carefully standing up, Steve turns around to go back into the palace. “It’s okay, Buck. Let’s go back inside, okay? We’ll be back inside in just a few minutes and—”

Then Bucky raises his head and lets out an angry meow as he stares up at Steve.

“What? You wanna go back into the palace, right?”

Bucky shakes his head.

Steve smiles. “Oh, you stubborn goof. You don’t gotta do this if you don’t wanna. We can get a car to drive us to the hiking trail tomorrow.”

That leads to an even more firm head shake and an annoyed meow.

“Okay, fine. You wanna go to the subway station today?”

Bucky gives him a firm nod, then sticks his head back into the crook of Steve’s elbow. The message seems to be that Bucky wants to do this, but he can’t deal with the overwhelming noise and sights around him.

“Alright, let’s try this. You just try to relax, okay? I ain’t gonna let nobody touch you, I promise.”

Turning back around, Steve walks down the sidewalk, keeping his arms wrapped around Bucky’s warm, small body, forming a barrier between him and the rest of the world as he constantly murmurs into Bucky’s ear and rubs his face against his furry head.

“You’re doing really good, Buck. I’m real proud of you. We’re gonna be there in just a few minutes, okay? You’re doing great.”

He sees people giving him strange looks as he walks, but he ignores them. The only one who matters is Bucky.

When they get into the subway station, Steve peers inside just to see what it looks like. “Okay, I see the ticket machines. That’s where we’re gonna go tomorrow. Alright, let’s head home.”

Bucky refuses to get out of Steve’s arms all the way until they’re back inside their quiet apartment and Steve’s sitting on the couch, petting him and kissing his head.

Finally, Bucky pokes his head up and looks up at Steve.

Steve smiles down at him and brushes his nose against Bucky’s little, cold nose. “There you are. You did so good! I know that was real overwhelming, but tomorrow morning will hopefully be better. We’ll go early enough that most people won’t be up yet.”


	5. Chapter 5

Just after dawn the next morning, Steve packs them a lunch, grabs small bowls for Bucky’s food and water, fills water bottles, grabs the pet carrier and they’re ready to go. They greet the morning palace guards and pass through the palace gates, ready to tackle city life once more.

Bucky’s sticking very close to Steve’s feet and Steve’s keeping one eye on him as they walk so he doesn’t accidentally step on him, but to both of their relief, the city is still slumbering. A few cars pass them and there are a handful of people walking around, but it’s much quiet than it was yesterday.

Steve looks down at Bucky. “What do you think? You doing okay?”

Bucky nods, lets out a confident meow and trots a few steps ahead of Steve, leading the way to the subway station. At every intersection, Bucky sits down and patiently waits by Steve’s side until the light changes and they can cross.

Steve’s thrilled that Bucky’s confidence has come back, but when they’re at the subway station, Steve can already see some sky train employees milling around by the ticket machines.

“Time for the carrier, Buck.”

An annoyed meow is his only response, but when Steve puts the bag on the ground and opens it, Bucky hops in and makes himself comfortable, making grumbling-equivalent noises as he goes.

Zipping the bag shut, Steve picks it up by the handle on the lid and heads to the ticket machines. Putting Bucky down, he taps on the screen to start the ticket purchasing process, but he hears a loud, annoyed meow coming from inside the carrier. “Have some patience, jerk. Jesus. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

More annoyed meowing and then the side of the bag bows out as if Bucky’s shoving at it with his paws.

Sighing, Steve crouches down and stares at Bucky through the mesh. “You know you gotta stay in the bag until we get on the train,” he says quietly, hoping the sky train employees won’t overhear him.

Bucky nods, but keeps letting out annoyed meows and shoving at the walls of the bag.

Steve frowns at him, wondering what he wants. If Bucky understands that he needs to stay in the bag for now, then what else could he possible want…oh. “You wanna see the screen when I’m buying tickets?”

Bucky nods.

Smiling, Steve stands up, picks up the carrier and slings the straps attached to the back of the bag over his shoulders, leaving the carrier sitting against his chest and giving Bucky a clear view of the machine.

He knows Bucky can’t read the writing on the machine anyway, so he decides to be adventurous and deliberately doesn’t select the English option on the screen. Selecting the type of ticket he wants, he’s very pleased when he can understand exactly what the Wakandan instructions and question say. He’s about to purchase one ticket…then he pauses.

“Buck, you think we should get a ticket for you?”

Technically, he knows pets don’t need a ticket to ride, but Bucky’s not a pet. And he remembers the years they’d spent dodging subway fares because they couldn’t afford them. It doesn’t feel right to cheat the system now that they have the money to afford the fare. It’s technically T’Challa’s money, but still.

He glances at Bucky through the mesh and Bucky nods firmly.

Tapping on the screen, Steve changes his order to get two tickets. Once that’s done, they head towards the entrance gates. Steve scans both of their tickets and walks through with Bucky quietly observing from his vantage point on Steve’s chest.

Steve knows he probably looks a bit silly, wearing the pet carrier on his front and the backpack with their supplies on his back, but he likes having his hands free.

After climbing up the stairs to the train platform, Steve sees there’s only one person waiting for the train with them. The sleek, white train arrives a few minutes later, pulling into the station with barely a sound. It looks and sounds very different from the bulky, noisy subway trains Steve and Bucky are used to, but he likes these ones.

“They look different from our old ones in Brooklyn, huh?”

He hears meows coming from the bag and when the train doors slide open with a whisper of sound, Steve steps on and finds a seat. Thankfully, their train car is empty. Looks like T’Challa’s advise had been accurate.

Making his way to the back corner of the train car, Steve sits down in the comfortable recliner-like seat and pulls off his backpack and the pet carrier. He slides over into the window seat and puts the backpack and the pet carrier onto the aisle seat.

As the doors of the car close and they start moving, Steve glances around to make sure they’re not being watched by any sky train employees. The coast is clear. “Okay, come on out. But you remember what you promised? If we get in trouble for you being out of the carrier, you gotta get back in without fussing, alright?”

A series of annoyed meows come from the carrier while Steve unzips the lid and holds it up. Bucky blinks up at him and climbs out, making his way to Steve’s lap and sitting down.

Steve wraps his hands around Bucky and strokes his soft, black fur. When he rubs Bucky’s neck, Bucky tilts his head up and looks at him upside down, meowing happily. Steve smiles. “Look at us! We’re on the subway and you did such a great job. It was much better today with fewer people and less noise, huh?”

Bucky nods.

Then Steve happens to glance out the window and he remembers what they’re actually doing. “Hey, Barnes?”

Bucky meows.

“You realize we’re on the subway together for the first time since before the war?”

Bucky lets out an enthusiastic meow and spins around in Steve’s arms so he can climb up Steve’s chest and wrap his front legs around his neck and press himself against Steve, nuzzling Steve’s neck and meowing happily.

Steve grins and bends his face down to nuzzle Bucky’s face. “You’re being adorable.”

Then Bucky gets distracted by the sights outside the window and he walks over and stands up against the window, pressing his front paws against the window and keeping his back legs on Steve’s lap.

Steve wraps his hands around Bucky and nudges the side of his face with his own as he joins him in staring out the window.

They’re speeding through the city, weaving between tall buildings as hover cars zip past them. In the distance, Steve can see the mountains. Pointing, Steve taps on the window. “That’s where we’re going.”

Bucky meows and rubs his head against Steve’s as he keeps staring out.

They approach a beautiful building that’s covered in glass and it’s shaped like an enormous ring. “Look at that one! It looks like a ring on its side, huh?”

Bucky nods and meows in agreement.

“It’s so different from back home, ain’t it?”

Another enthusiastic meow.

They keep looking out at the different buildings, pointing out the interesting ones to each other. Whenever the train slows down to approach a station, Bucky pushes himself off the window and curls up on Steve’s lap, hiding from the view of any sky train employees on the platform.

As soon as the train starts moving again, Bucky’s back up, bracing himself against the window and meowing happily as he stares outside. Steve gently wraps his hands around his middle so he doesn’t fall over and rubs the soft fur on his belly.

There’s a large screen embedded in the seat in front of him and Steve can see the train’s progress and keep track of what stops they’re at. Eventually, the stops are further apart and they’re just a few stops away from the one they need. The buildings are getting shorter and sparser, the spaces between them filling with trees and long, winding roads.

“I think we’re almost out of the city, Buck.”

The distant mountains are getting closer and eventually the train starts climbing upwards, zig-zagging up the side of a mountain. The ground below gets further and further away and then to their delight, the train races along a long bridge between two mountains.

The mountains are covered in lush, green trees and there’s a beautiful waterfall cascading down, the water sparkling in the sun, with the blue sky stretching above them. Everywhere Steve looks, it’s green and breathtakingly beautiful.

“It’s beautiful, ain’t it, Buck?” He mutters against the side of Bucky’s head, staring out the window with wide eyes.

Bucky meows softly and gives a small nod, seemingly as mesmerized by the beauty outside of the train as Steve.

*             *             *

Once they’re out of the sky train station, they find themselves in the middle of the wilderness. There’s nothing else in the area except for forest. There’s a big map by the station and Steve and Bucky discuss which hiking trail they want to try. Once they’ve picked the one they want, Steve stuffs the pet carrier into his backpack and they’re ready. “Okay, let’s go.”

Bucky trots along ahead of him, stopping to glance back at Steve whenever the path splits into different pathways and waits for Steve to point in the direction they have to go.

Being out in nature like this is amazing. The trees tower of them and the dirt paths are lined with enormous ferns and plants covered in flowers in vibrant shades of color. Dozens of different creatures are chirping, whistling and making all sorts of interesting noises around them. Thick green vines hang down from the trees and everything smells woody and clean. The canopy is so thick that Steve can barely glimpse the blue sky above and insects are buzzing around him. It feels so nice to be walking on soft dirt and stepping over roots and stones.

“Hey, Buck?”

Bucky stops sniffing a plant with big orange flowers which he’s gotten interested in and glances over his shoulder at Steve.

Steve smiles at him. “This is great, ain’t it?”

Nodding enthusiastically, Bucky lets out a happy meow and resumes sniffing the plant, nudging the orange flowers with his nose.

After some walking, Steve decides to get some more exercise. “I’m gonna run for a bit, Buck. You can keep up or I’ll circle around.”

Tightening the straps of his backpack, he starts jogging. Bucky easily keeps up, bounding along beside him or getting ahead of him a few paces. They slow down whenever they get to a fork in the path and Steve pulls out his phone to check the map he’d downloaded at the palace to make sure they don’t get lost. Once Steve’s picked the right way to go, they’re off again, running through the wilderness.

When they come across an enormous tree that’s hollow inside, Bucky meows loudly and they come to a stop so Bucky can go inside and explore it. Steve can see the inside is empty so luckily, Bucky won’t be surprising anybody who’s napping inside.

Steve crouches down and watches Bucky, smiling at him. “You’re lucky you’re so small now, Buck. I ain’t gonna fit in there. Maybe I would with my old body, but not this new one.”

Bucky must find something to step on inside the tree because he suddenly pokes his head out of a hole in the tree, peering out at Steve and meowing proudly.

Steve laughs. “Look at you! Wait, wait. Don’t move, I’m gonna take a picture.”

Pulling out his phone, he takes a picture of Bucky inside the tree. When Bucky comes back out, he climbs up Steve’s chest with his front paws, meowing into his face and nudging his phone.

“What? You wanna see?”

Bucky shakes his head and keeps rubbing his head against Steve’s face and the phone.

Maybe wants… “You wanna take a picture of both of us?”

Bucky nods and rubs his face against Steve’s chin. Steve lifts Bucky up and holds him with one arm while he positions his phone with the other. They press their heads together and Steve turns them until they’ve got a plant with bright blue and white flowers right behind them and takes the picture.

“There we go. You wanna send the photos to T’Challa and Shuri?”

Nodding, Bucky lets out a series of meows and jumps down from Steve’s arms. He sniffs things while Steve sends off the photos, then they head off again. Eventually, the path leads them to the edge of the mountain they’re on and there’s a wooden railing on the boundary of the path, separating them from the steep drop-off. “Buck, careful. Don’t go too close to the edge.”

Steve stops and stares out at the mountains in the distance. The enormous waterfall they’d passed on the train is across from them and now that they’re closer, he can see it’s made out of multiple waterfalls, cascading down the side of the mountain. The water thunders down, sparkling in the sunlight. “You wanna eat lunch here? I could sit here and stare at that waterfall all day.”

Bucky meows and nods his agreement.

Sitting down in the dirt, Steve takes off his backpack and Bucky climbs onto his lap, sitting so he can stare out at the waterfall and the green covered mountain around it. Steve tangles his hands into the fur on Bucky’s belly and rubs gently, watching the waterfall.

Once he can tear his eyes off the amazing scenery for a few minutes, Steve takes out their lunch. He opens the container of food and carefully scoops out some food for Bucky and uses his fork to mush it up in his food bowl. Putting it on the ground next to him, he takes out Bucky’s water bowl and squirts some water from his bottle into it. “There you go. Good appetite.”

Bucky meows and rubs his head on Steve’s chin before climbing off his lap and settling down by his bowls. He licks up small mouthfuls, lifting his head to stare out at the waterfall while he chews.

Steve makes himself comfortable and starts eating, glancing down at Bucky from time to time so he can nudge his food into a better position in the bowl if things get shoved around too much. “This is amazing ain’t it, Buck? I wanna do this again real soon.”

Bucky swallows his mouthful and nods, meowing loudly.

*             *             *

They enjoyed their subway ride and the hike so much that they decide to go several times a week. Steve finds more detailed maps of the hiking trails and they alternate exploring new ones and re-tracing old favorites.

Shuri is so pleased that Steve and Bucky are getting out of the palace more that she puts a program on his phone that will identify any plant or animal when he takes a picture of it. Slowly, Steve and Bucky start learning what different things are called, and Steve is very proud of himself when he starts being able to visually identify the plants around them without the program’s help.

As they get more familiar with the Wakandan wilderness, Steve is surprised to feel his fingers itching to pick up a pencil and sketch some of them.

He hasn’t had the urge or motivation to draw anything in years. After he’d come out of the ice, he’d tried to force himself to sketch—thinking that the familiarity of it would help—but he’d felt unmotivated and hadn’t been happy with anything he’d produced.

But when he’s sitting in the dirt in the middle of the forest and he’s sketching a beautiful flower and Bucky’s lying next to him, watching his progress and giving Steve meows of encouragement, Steve’s love for drawing starts to come back. The colors of the forest are so breathtakingly beautiful that Steve buys a pack of colored pencils and learns how to draw in color, which is something he’s never done before.

He fills page after page with plants, trees, Bucky, the mountains, the waterfall and anything else he sees.

Gradually, they get more adventurous and start getting off the sky train at random stops to explore the shops and buildings around them. When they find something interesting, Steve will sit at a table or bench and pull out his sketch book, with Bucky sitting next to him or on the table, watching him and providing enthusiastic meows for encouragement.

Steve feels very proud of himself when he fills up his first sketch book. “I did good, huh, Buck?” Steve mumbles, leafing through the pages covered in his pencil drawings, some black and white and others covered in bright shades of color.

Bucky puts his front paws on Steve’s leg and cranes his neck up to nuzzle Steve’s face with his own, meowing softly.

They always time their trips so they leave before the morning crowd and they come back in the early afternoon before the work crowd comes back home so they avoid the big crowds. Bucky becomes more accustomed to walking around on the streets when other people are around, but he still prefers being in calmer environments.

Being outside and exploring is fun and relaxing and it makes both of them appreciate their cozy apartment even more. Every few days, they’ll spend the day at home, playing games together and Steve doing various chores while Bucky supervises from his cat tree.

When they’re not in the mood to go for a long trip, they often go for a walk in the palace gardens. Now that they’re accustomed to the enormous wilderness of the outer regions, the garden seems small and a bit quaint, but it’s still nice to get outside.

They’re sitting in the clearing with the tables and chairs, Bucky stretched out on his back on one of the chairs and napping in the sun, while Steve sits in the chair next to him. He’s working on a sketch of the water fountain that’s quietly bubbling in the middle of the clearing. The fountain is covered in a lot of small details and Steve is concentrating so hard on getting the details right that he doesn’t even notice they have company until a shadow falls over him.

“Hello, Steve. Hello, Bucky.”

Bucky wakes up and flip himself over to his front, then Steve glances up and he’s happy to recognize Ramonda. “Ramonda! How nice to see you again!”

“You as well.” She holds out her hands and Steve squeezes them, thrilled to see her. After releasing Steve’s hands, she crouches down by Bucky’s chair, who has pushed himself up into a sitting position.

“Hello, Bucky.” She holds out her hand, palm up and Bucky puts his paw on her palm and rubs her hand with his head.

She lets out a delighted laugh and gently scratches Bucky behind the ears, which Steve knows will get him purring in seconds. “Do you mind if I join you for a visit? I haven’t seen you both in a while.”

“Of course!”

Steve hurriedly closes his sketch book and shoves it next to him so he can stand up and bring over a nearby chair for Ramonda.

“Thank you, Steve. Now, tell me all about what the two of you have been doing lately.”

Steve tells her about their adventures around the city and in the forest, pulling out his phone to show her some of the pictures he’d taken. She asks them both questions—always asking yes/no questions when speaking to Bucky—and she seems genuinely interested in what they’re telling her.

When they’re done, she tells them about her recent travels and some of the delightful characters she’d met while she’d been gone. She has Steve in hysterics in no time and Bucky is loudly meowing to indicate his amusement. Once the conversation starts to die down again, Ramonda points at the sketch book wedged next to Steve on his chair. “So, may I ask how long you have been an artist?”

Steve gapes at her. “Oh, I’m—I ain’t an artist. I just sketch for fun.”

She frowns at him. “You’re very talented, Steve. I’m sorry if you meant it to be private, but I saw the picture you were drawing of the fountain and it’s incredible. You might not be selling your art for money, but you’re definitely an artist.”

Steve blushes and Bucky meows loudly and nods. Steve shots Bucky a mock-glare, not knowing what to say. He’s always known that Bucky loves his art, but he always thought Bucky was heavily biased about such things. But to hear somebody else comment about his art means a lot to him. “Thank you, Ramonda. That really means the world to me. I don’t show my art to many people, so it’s nice to hear you think I’m good.”

She reaches over and squeezes his hand. “I meant what I said: you aren’t just good, you’re _very_ good. Would you consider using this talent in other ways?”

Steve blinks. “Like what?”

“Shuri used to volunteer at the art school that’s by…where is it? Oh, I cannot remember now. Just a few streets over from the market. Anyway, I think they would love to have an artist of your talent working there.”

Steve blinks again. Working? The idea immediately appeals to him. Lately, he’s been thinking more and more about his long term plans. Bucky’s going to remain in cat form for the next few years, which means it’s time for Steve to stop living in limbo and find a way to contribute to society, especially a society that’s helped him and Bucky so much.

He’d considered maybe getting work inside the palace or some manual labor type of work, but he’d never considered getting work related to his art. But he already knows the art school idea comes with a big problem, which has nothing to do with his artistic ability. “You really think they’d hire me? My Wakandan’s still really bad.”

He hasn’t been putting as much effort into the language learning program lately, since he always speaks English to Bucky anyway and they’d been busy focusing on other things.

“That’s not a big problem. Many of the children at the school speak English, and it would give you the opportunity to practice your Wakandan. If you’re exposed to the language more, you will pick it up very quickly.”

“But I don’t have any formal training. I’ve never taught anybody how to draw.”

She smiles and waves a dismissive hand. “That’s not a concern. You have the talent that the position requires and if they accept your application, they will train you when you are there. So are you interested?”

Steve exchanges a look with Bucky, who’s standing on his chair and nodding enthusiastically. Steve feels nervous, but he’s also excited. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Great! You should call Shuri right away and ask her to put in a good word for you.”

*             *             *

Despite his nerves, Steve gives in to Bucky’s nagging and calls Shuri when they’re back  in their apartment. Shuri is thrilled that Steve’s interested in working at the art school and she comes over to their apartment to help Steve and Bucky pick out examples of his art and put together an application.

By the end of the afternoon, Steve’s submitted his application and Shuri’s on the phone with the director of the art school to put in a good word for Steve.

Things go well, and two days later, Steve gets a call from a wonderful lady named Kesandu, who teaches some of the art classes.

As soon as Steve realizes who’s on the phone and greets her, Bucky launches himself off the cat tree and leaps onto Steve’s lap and presses his paws into his stomach until Steve puts the phone on speaker so Bucky can listen.

“I was happy to see your application, Steve! You’re very talented and Princess Shuri speaks very highly of you.”

Steve blushes and Bucky hops around on his lap, his tail waving in Steve’s face. “Oh, thank you very much!”

“If you’re interested, then I would like to be your mentor teacher. We have a new class starting next week and you can come in and observe a few classes and slowly start helping with the students. Our policy for new teachers is for them to spend one semester training, and if they are successful, then we make their employment official.”

Excitement floods him. “That—that would be great!”

Bucky’s twirling and jumping around on Steve’s lap, staying quiet but just as happy as Steve.

When Kesandu disconnects the call, Steve barely has time to hang up the phone before Bucky’s meowing loudly and dancing around on his lap, smacking his tail in Steve’s face as he twists in circles and climbs up Steve’s shirt to rub his face with his own.

Steve can’t help but smile at Bucky’s happiness and rubs Bucky’s face, feeling excited. “Yeah, that went well, huh? I can’t believe I’m gonna be teaching other people how to draw, Buck! Now we just gotta wait until next week.”

*             *             *

Steve’s excitement gradually turns to nerves. The night before their first day, Steve is tossing and turning in bed, his stomach twisting.

Bucky finally lets out an annoyed meow and climbs onto Steve’s chest. Sitting down, Bucky stares down at Steve very sternly and lets out a series of gentle but firm meows. Steve knows exactly what Bucky’s trying to say.

_“Calm down, Rogers. You’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna go together and I’ll help you. I’ll be there the whole time and things will be fine, you’ll see.”_

“You know my damn nerves, Barnes. I can’t just turn ‘em off.”

Jumping off Steve, Bucky lies down next to him and digs his claws into Steve’s shirt, tugging and meowing until Steve turns onto his side, facing Bucky.

Meowing softly, Bucky retracts his claws and puts his paws on Steve’s face and presses his face to Steve’s. He continues meowing softly, calming Steve’s nerves and letting Steve soak up his strength and positivity.

Steve finds himself focusing more on Bucky’s calm meows and his soft paws on his face and less on his stupid nerves. Eventually, he manages to fall asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Kesandu is a kind, elderly woman who greets Steve enthusiastically when Steve and Bucky enter the empty classroom. “Hello, Steve! It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“You too, Kesandu! Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.”

Steve’s eyes are scanning the room, eager to see where he’s going to be spending a lot of his time from now on. Hopefully.

Most of the room is taken up by large tables and sunshine is streaming in through the large windows and the skylight above. The walls are covered in pieces of art, done in various styles: some painted in vibrant colors, others sketched in black and white.

As Steve is staring at a beautiful drawing of a traditional Wakandan brick hut, he suddenly notices the picture has changed to show a herd of horses. Blinking, Steve frowns and stares at the picture harder. It was definitely a hut…and now it’s showing horses. That’s when he realizes the picture frames must be digital!

That makes him feel a bit panicked. He’s not used to art and technology mixing. But then he sternly tells himself to calm down. Having digital picture frames isn’t that strange.

“Oh, and who’s this?” Kesandu asks, pulling Steve out of his scrutiny of the digital frames.

She’s smiling down at Bucky, but she looks a bit confused.

“Oh, I’m sorry, where are my manners? Geeze. This is Bucky. Bucky, this is Kesandu.”

Bucky trots up to Kesandu, sits down and politely holds out his paw, looking up at her.

Kesandu blinks and her smiles seems a bit strained. “You…brought your cat with you?”

That’s when Steve realizes how weird the situation must seem to her. It hadn’t even occurred to Steve to ask if bringing Bucky was alright. Where Steve goes, Bucky goes. Where Bucky goes, Steve goes. They’ve been a package deal their entire lives and Steve rarely has to explain that. “Uh…yes. We go everywhere together.”

She tears her gaze off Bucky and stares at Steve, looking like she can’t make sense of that information.

Realizing he might be coming off as a crazy person, Steve hurries to think up an explanation that will make sense without telling her the truth. He hasn’t asked Bucky if he’s okay with strangers knowing who he is so it’s not his place to tell strangers the truth. “He’s…very important to me and I don’t have any family left.”

As he’d hoped, that news makes her strained smile turn into a sympathetic one. “I’m very sorry to hear that. He must be a great comfort to you.”

“Oh, absolutely. And don’t worry, he’s very friendly. If you want him to sit in a corner during class, then he’ll do that. He can understand English and a little bit of Wakandan.”

She blinks and seems to want to ask more questions, but maybe decides she wants to steer the conversation back on track. Bending down, she slowly reaches out her hand and shakes Bucky’s paw. “Hello, Bucky. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Bucky meows at her and bows his head.

Releasing Bucky’s paw, she straightens back up. “I’ve never had an animal in the classroom before, but as long as he’s not aggressive and doesn’t become a distraction, I will allow it.”

Steve lets out a sigh of relief. He has no idea if he’d want to carry through with this whole thing if Bucky couldn’t be part of it. Maybe that’s not healthy, but it’s how he feels. Luckily, he won’t have to make that decision because Kesandu is wonderful and understanding of the weird situation.

Turning back to Steve, she gestures at one of the tables. “Please sit down. I’ll show you what the students work with.” She walks towards a large closet in the corner of the room, probably to grab a sketch book and some pencils.

Steve has a seat at one of the tables but Bucky doesn’t move, probably not wanting to upset Kesandu by jumping up next to Steve.

“Uhm, Kesandu?”

“Yes?”

“Can Bucky…is it okay if Bucky sits on one of the chairs? Or my lap? He’d love to see what you’re gonna show me.”

She grabs a thin device out of the closet and walks back towards him, that confused smile back on her face. “Yes, of course.”

Sitting down next to Steve, she lays the device on the table, which resembles an electronic tablet. Steve has no idea what this device has to do with drawing and art in general, but maybe she’s going to show him a video or pictures of the class?

When Steve realizes that Bucky hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor, Steve glances over at him. “Come on, Buck. She said it’s okay. Come sit on my lap.”

Hurrying over, Bucky silently leaps onto Steve’s lap and stands up with his front paws braced on the table so he can see the electronic device as it powers on.

Steve wraps one hand around Bucky’s stomach and gently rubs his fur. Usually, Bucky would be meowing and chatting a mile a minute, but Steve knows he’s trying to be respectful and not give Kesandu any reason to think he’s a disruption.

“I’ll give you a short tutorial on how to use the drawing program and you can spend the first class just observing. I will give you a tablet to take home so you can practice and when you’re ready to start helping the children, you can tell me.”

Steve blinks. Drawing program? Drawing _program?!_

Reaching over, Kesandu presses something on the tablet and a program opens on the device. “I’ll show you how to use the basic functions. This is your drawing tool.” She turns the device sideways and pulls out something resembles a pen, but Steve sees the tip is just a metal nub..

Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all! Panic clenches in his gut. He can’t draw using electronic devices! He needs a pencil and paper!

He realizes his hand on Bucky’s belly has frozen and Bucky seems to understand Steve’s panic without him having to say a word. Without a sound, Bucky takes one of his paws off the table and gently rubs it against Steve’s frozen hand.

Craning his neck up, Bucky looks up at Steve and blinks at him calmly. Once again, Steve knows what Bucky would say if he could speak.

_“Calm down, Rogers. You can do this, I know you can. It can’t be that hard. You learned how to type on a computer, didn’t you? If children can learn to use these devices, then so can you. Concentrate and do your best. If you tried really hard and can’t get it, then we can quit. But we ain’t quitting before we even start.”_

Giving Bucky a tiny nod, Steve clenches his jaw and pays attention to Kesandu as she slowly goes over how to use the program.

It’s actually very impressive. Instead of being restricted to drawing with whatever’s on hand, the students can tell the computer what they want to draw with, and the program will automatically create the line thickness and flow consistency to match the chosen tool, whether that’s a pencil, pen, paintbrush or anything else.

They can change colors, rotate the picture, zoom in and out and erase things with a swipe of a finger. Using it really isn’t that difficult—well, the very basic functions which Kesandu shows him—and Steve finds himself getting excited again. “Wow! I’ve never drawn with anything except pencils and paper, but this is wonderful! You never waste paper and you never have to sharpen your pencil.”

She laughs. “That’s true! It allows for full creativity without being limited by materials.”

Bucky keeps rubbing Steve’s hand with his paw, but as Steve starts to relax again, Bucky spends more time staring down at the device, watching Kesandu’s instructions.

After having Steve try out a few things on the device on his own, she smiles, looking pleased. “I’m very happy with your progress, Steve. Now, we must get ready for our first class. You can take this device home and use it to practice. I have added all the lesson plans on it, so you can see what we’ll be teaching. I expect you to be proficient enough with it by next class that you can help the students. If things go well, then you will be teaching some classes later in the semester.”

Steve nods and feels excited again. He can do this. “Okay. I’ll work hard, I promise.”

Smiling, she squeezes his hand, which is holding the metal drawing tool. “I know you will. Now, please sit over there in the corner. Bucky too. You should spend the first class just observing.”

*             *             *

Steve hopes they won’t cause a disruption for the class, but those hopes are shattered when the children start to come in and notice Steve—a white man—sitting with a black cat on his lap. The combination is irresistible to them and many of the children come hurrying over, chattering in English and Wakandan.

“Is that your cat?”

“What’s his name?”

“Where are you from?”

“Can I pet him?”

“Do you know my friend Mark? He has skin like yours.”

“Is your cat nice?”

The questions are overwhelming and Steve just sits there, frozen as Bucky bravely sits on his lap and tolerates the dozen strange hands touching him.

Steve has no idea what to do. The instinct to scoop Bucky up into his arms is strong, but so is the urge to be nice. But he hasn’t asked if Bucky’s alright with the touching. What if—

The sound of somebody clapping brings Steve’s mental questions and the children’s questions to an abrupt halt. “Children! Please step away from Steve and Bucky. They’re here to observe our class and they are not a zoo exhibit. They will answer questions later, if they want to. Everybody needs to sit down so we can start class.”

With groans and grumbles, the children stream away from Steve and Bucky and pick their seats around the large tables.

Kesandu keeps the rest of the class focused on introducing the children to different types of art and showing them some basic functions of the drawing program. With a press of a button at her desk, she makes small screens rise out of each of the children’s tables, like a series of small televisions. When she starts demonstrating how to use the program on her own tablet, Steve can see that her tablet screen is being shown on the children’s small screens so they can see what she’s doing and copy her on their own tablets.

It’s very strange but also fascinating to be in a classroom with absolutely no paper and no pencils.

The class is conducted in Wakandan and Steve pulls out his phone so he can look up some of the words he doesn’t understand. He’s grateful that Kesandu had shown him how to use the program beforehand so he can focus more on understanding her Wakandan than the actual tasks she’s doing.

While the children are doing one of the exercises she’d given them, she wanders over to where Bucky and Steve are and switches to English when she speaks to them. “Do you mind if the children ask you some questions before the end of the class? You don’t have to answer questions, but they would enjoy it.”

Steve looks down at Bucky and sees him give Steve a tiny nod. “Sure! I don’t mind.”

Before the end of class, Kesandu claps her hands and gestures for Steve and Bucky to come to the front. Bucky hops off Steve’s lap and walks along beside him and politely sits down when Steve’s standing at the front.

“This is Steve and his cat is named Bucky. Steve is my teaching assistant and he is learning how to teach. You may ask him questions, but only if you raise your hands. Please introduce yourself to him before you ask your question.”

Nearly half of the class’ hands shoot up into the air and Steve randomly points at a little boy. The boy stands up and rattles off a question Wakanda, but way too quickly for Steve to understand. Clearing his throat, Steve gives him a smile. “Please speak slow,” he says in Wakandan. “Me Wakandan bad.”

“Do you want the children asking in English, Steve?”

“No, is good,” he says in his slow, halting Wakanda. “I practice. Slow, please.”

The boy’s practically vibrating while he stands there, his eyes huge. Steve can see him mentally struggling to reign in his excitement so he can ask the question slowly enough that Steve can understand. “My name’s Bako. Where are you from?”

Thankfully, Steve can understand that and he also knows how to answer that question because it’s one of the phrases his language learning program has taught him. “Hello, Bako. I am from a city named Brooklyn, in New York, in America,” he says in slow Wakandan.

There’s a swell of chatter in the class as the children take in that information, and even more hands go up. Steve answers half a dozen other questions, sometimes having to switch to English if his limited Wakandan can’t handle the response he wants to give, but he thinks he does pretty well.

Before the end of class, Kesandu asks the students if they’d like to see any of her own art pieces, which gets greeted with a lot of enthusiasm. Stepping up next to Steve with her tablet, Kesandu shows them some of her own artwork and Steve eagerly looks over her shoulder to see what she’s showing them.

It seems that Kesandu favors painting and all of her pieces are a beautiful mix of various colors and shades, all seamlessly blending together in a way that Steve has no chance of replicating at this point. Most of her work is of landscapes and everyday items such as pieces of fruit and dishes of food.

“They’re beautiful, Kesandu,” Steve says.

She smiles. “Thank you, Steve. Would you be comfortable sharing some of your pieces with the children?”

“Oh, I didn’t bring any with me.”

“I have the pieces you submitted with your application on my computer. Would you be comfortable if I showed them to the students?”

Steve gets that nervous clench in his belly, but he hears Bucky let out a soft meow from his feet and Steve decides to go for it. “Sure.”

“Children, I will now show you some art that Steve has drawn.” With a press of a few buttons, she pulls up the drawings from Steve’s application package. The first drawing happens to be one of Steve’s favorites: Bucky sitting inside the hollow tree on their favorite hiking trail.

Right away, there’s an excited chorus of ‘it’s so beautiful!’ and ‘that’s the cat, Bucky!’ and other positive reactions coming from around the room. Their enthusiasm grows as Kesandu scrolls through more of Steve’s pictures. Feeling himself blushing as the entire class looks at his art, Steve glances up and sees many of the children staring at their desk screens, their eyes wide with awe as they whisper and nudge each other, pointing at the screen with excitement.

For the first time, Steve starts to feel truly confident about this. Ramonda was right. He can learn how to teach and how to use the drawing program, but apparently Bucky and his ma had always been right; he already has the most important skill he needs to do this job.

For the first time in his life, Steve truly does feel like an artist who’s worthy of that title.

*             *             *

“Okay, Buck. Let’s try this out.”

Steve is sitting on the couch, the drawing tablet on his lap while Bucky is lying right next to him, resting his head on his paws, which are on Steve’s leg.

Taking out the drawing tool, Steve takes a deep breath and opens the drawing program, while his other hand scratches behind Bucky’s ears.

Selecting the pencil function, he starts out with easy shapes; drawing circles, lines and boxes, getting the feel for the tool in his hand. It feels very different from drawing on paper. The tablet has less friction than a piece of paper and the drawing tool tip is completely smooth, making each stroke require less effort than he’s used to. “It feels real different. Like it’s less work. I don’t know if I like that.”

Bucky has raised his head as Steve started drawing so he can watch Steve’s progress. He looks up at Steve and lets out a soft meow.

“I know, I know. I’ll get used to it, I guess.”

As he continues practicing, he realizes he’s being very careful about not using too much of the drawing space. He’s used to conserving his precious paper, a habit he’d developed when he was younger. Once every bit of the drawing surface has been covered in shapes and doodles, he lifts his hand and goes to flip the paper over…only to realize that he can’t. Because it’s not a piece of paper in his sketch book.

Chuckling, he glances down at Bucky. “I just tried flipping the page.”

Bucky glances up at him, lets out an amused meow and taps on Steve’s leg with his paws, making fun of him.

“Yeah, I know. I’m a goof. Shut up.” Steve lightly flicks Bucky on the head. In retaliation, Bucky extends his claws, digging them into Steve’s leg, making him jump.

“Ow, shit!” Laughing, Steve looks down at Bucky, who’s glaring up at him. “Hey, you started it!”

Then Bucky puts his head back down and closes his eyes, trying to look innocent.

“Jerk,” Steve mutters, mock-glaring down at Bucky, but he can’t smother the smile on his face. Turning back to the drawing tablet, he presses the button that gets him a new page and just like that, he’s got a new blank drawing surface. “That’s a lot easier than flipping a page.”

Now that he’s got a feel for the process, Steve decides to sketch Bucky’s cat tree, which happens to be in his eye line. As he works on a rough outline, he sees Bucky open his eyes and lift his head again, staring at the tablet.

Steve works in silence and the more of the cat tree appears, the more pleased Steve is about this. “I think I can do this, Buck,” he mumbles.

Bucky lets out an enthusiastic meow. Then he gets up and climbs into Steve’s lap, being careful not to step on the tablet. Steve smiles and moves the tablet over a bit, allowing Bucky to sit down and snuggle up against Steve’s stomach. Steve winds his hand around Bucky and rubs his furry stomach as he gets comfortable. Once Bucky’s settled, he lets out a happy sigh and keeps watching Steve draw, probably enjoying his better view.

For the next few hours, the only sounds are Steve’s random observations and quiet curses when he screws up or can’t find the button he needs. Every few minutes, Bucky cranes his neck up to look at Steve upside down and let out a happy meow of encouragement, keeping him motivated.

*             *             *

“Now we’ll do Exercise 3. You’ll be drawing five boxes, each one larger than the previous. What’s the important word for today?” Kesandu asks in Wakandan.

Steve mumbles along the answer as the class lets out a chorus of “Perspective!” in Wakandan.

“Correct. Please work on Exercise 3 and Steve and I will come around and help you.”

Getting off his seat, Steve goes to one side of the classroom as Kesandu starts on the other. Bucky stays lying down on the sunny window sill, sleepily watching over the class doing their work. At the start and end of class, the children always crowd around him, petting him and talking to him, but Bucky doesn’t want to be a distraction during class and stays out of the way.

Steve and Bucky had discussed how Bucky wants to interact with the children, and they both think it’s easier just to let them think that Bucky is very well trained and can understand some spoken phrases, but not everything. Bucky purposefully doesn’t nod or shake his head to answer questions when asked and nobody in the class has any reason to think that Bucky is anything other than an ordinary cat.

Despite Bucky mostly keeping to himself during the classes, it’s very comforting to Steve to have him nearby. Whenever he gets nervous when he’s trying to demonstrate something or explain something in his rapidly improving but still shaky Wakandan, he’ll glance over at Bucky, who will give him a tiny nod of encouragement or discreetly wave a paw at him and that always makes Steve feel better.

Steve circulates amongst the students, stopping to praise their progress—which always brings out proud, happy smiles from them—and offering assistance to those who are struggling. The more he does it, the easier it becomes and Steve can feel he’s starting to relax and really enjoy himself.

At the end of class, Steve is back on his seat by the window sill in the back of the class, while a group of students crowd around Bucky, gently petting him and talking to him about various things while Bucky makes them laugh with delight by rolling onto his back and stretching out his paws to tap their hands.

Bako, one of the students Steve has become familiar with is shyly standing on the edge of the group, but he seems to be looking at Steve rather than Bucky.

Steve is accustomed to being ignored when Bucky attracts all the attention in a room—a situation that’s stayed consistent from the day they’d met—so it takes him a little while to realize that maybe Bako wants to talk to him. “Do you have a question, Bako?” He asks in Wakandan.

Bako nods frantically and he seems to get a burst of courage and rushes up to Steve. “I made you something. A present.”

A smile spreads over Steve’s face as a warm glow fills him. “Oh, that’s wonderful! But you don’t have to give me presents.”

“I know, I just wanted to. I drew you a picture and I emailed it to you.”

“You did?”

For a second, Steve doesn’t understand how Bako had gotten hold of his personal email, but then he remembers his new teacher email address. Kesandu hadn’t told the class Steve’s email, but Bako must have found out Steve’s last name and then figured out the convention used for the teacher email addresses. He’s a clever kid.

Bako’s nodding, looking proud. “Yes. I worked on the drawing very hard.”

Steve grins. “Would you like me to look at it now?”

Nodding frantically, Bako’s smiling and shifting around with excitement.

Taking a few steps away from where Bucky’s holding court with half a dozen students, Steve pulls out his phone and opens his work email. Sure enough, there’s an email from Bako and Steve opens up the attached drawing. Despite Bako’s inexperience and the simplicity of the sketch, Steve recognizes it immediately and his eyes widen.

It’s a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. “Is this Brooklyn Bridge?”

Bako nods and he’s glowing. “Yes! You said you were born in Brooklyn and now you live so far away and I wanted to draw you a picture so you can see Brooklyn whenever you want.”

Feeling touched by the gesture, Steve stares down at the picture. “Thank you. This really means a lot to me,” he says softly. He realizes he’s switched over to English, but he can’t handle this much emotion and correctly conjugate verbs at the same time.

“So…you like it? I know it’s not very good.”

“It’s wonderful! You’re very talented. But you’re also a very kind person and that makes you extra special.”

Bako’s grin could power the entire city. Then in the fashion of children, he decides he’s done with the conversation. “Okay, I’m going home now. See you next class!” And he hurries off.

“Bye, Bako,” Steve calls after, switching back to Wakandan. “Thank you!”

*             *             *

When they get home, Steve shows Bucky the drawing and they sit on the couch with Bucky curled up against Steve’s stomach and quietly staring at the drawing.

“Brooklyn seems so far away, don’t it?”

Bucky meows softly and nods.

“But you know what? I’m not as homesick as I used to be.”

Standing up, Bucky meows happily and wraps his front legs around Steve’s neck, giving him a hug. Smiling, Steve wraps his hands around Bucky and holds him close, stroking his soft fur.

*             *             *

They’re sitting on the floor of the living area and Steve is working on a lesson plan on one drawing tablet, while Bucky amuses himself with another tablet.

Now that Steve’s been assisting in the class for several months, Kesandu has determined that Steve has progressed enough to teach a whole class by himself tomorrow. They’d gone over what material he’ll teach and he’s going to be using Kesandu’s lesson plan, but he wants to make sure he’s got everything prepared.

His Wakandan has improved tremendously over the last few months, but he still has a secret cheat sheet typed up on his phone which he can consult if he forgets specific words. Kesandu would allow him to teach in English or Wakandan, but Steve really wants to do it in Wakandan.

He’d already gone over the lesson twice with Bucky and now he’s just scrolling through the lesson plan, his nerves gnawing away at him. He’d been preparing this lesson for a week already, so Bucky had forced him to drop everything and spend the day outside. They’d taken the sky train to a hiking trail this morning and they’d spent most of the day out in the forest which had helped calm Steve’s nerves.

But now that they’re home and he’s staring at his tablet, he’s getting nervous again. To distract himself, he looks over at what Bucky’s doing.

Bucky’s sitting in front of his own drawing tablet and he’s using his paw to carefully draw swirls of paint. The program has a setting for very young children which only offers a limited number of functions and uses enormous touch buttons.

Bucky loves using the paint function. Steve will get it set up for him and Bucky can swipe, swirl and tap on the device with his paw to draw splotches and streaks of thick paint on it. Apparently, Bucky’s color vision is a lot more limited than his human vision had been, but he loves creating his ‘abstract’ art and keeping Steve company at the same time.

Steve watches Bucky paint for a while, smiling at how adorable Bucky’s being. Bucky always stares at the tablet with intense concentration and his tail tip twitches as he carefully taps and swipes his paw over the tablet, covering it in colorful blobs of color.

“Having fun, Barnes?”

Bucky lets out a soft meow and nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off his work.

Sighing, Steve looks down at the lesson plan again and listlessly scrolls through it, feeling his nerves grow the longer he scrolls. Finally, he hears an annoyed meow coming from across him. When he looks up, Bucky’s stopped painting and he’s staring at Steve.

“What? I’m allowed to be nervous.”

That’s greeted with an even more annoyed meow. Standing up, Bucky launches himself across their two tablets and leaps into Steve’s arms, his claws anchoring him into Steve’s shirt.

Grabbing hold of him with a laugh, Steve dramatically tumbles backwards, cradling Bucky to his chest. When he’s on his back, he rubs Bucky’s face with his fingers and smiles up at him. But the second he’s no longer distracted by Bucky, his nerves start coming back again. Maybe Bucky can sense that, because he flicks his tail with annoyance and starts meowing and prancing around on Steve’s chest, tapping his paws and jumping around.

Laughing, Steve drops his arms to his sides and stares at Bucky. “What are you doing, goofball?”

Bucky keeps clowning around, turning in circles and kneading his paws into Steve’s chest, being an amazing distraction. It makes Steve laugh even harder, which he knew Bucky knew would happen.

Before Steve can be pulled back by his nerves, Bucky leaps off his chest and runs off towards his little basket of toys. Digging through the pile, he grabs a fluffy stuffed animal which Shuri had bought him last month and hurries back to Steve, carrying the stuffed toy in his mouth.

When Bucky comes closer, Steve smiles and reaches out to grab the toy, but Bucky hops out of reach, letting out muffled meows.

Grinning, Steve rolls over onto his stomach. “You’re gonna be difficult, huh?”

Bucky nods enthusiastically and steps a little closer to Steve, but as soon as Steve tries to snatch the toy, Bucky leaps back and runs off a few paces, meowing happily with his tail twitching in the air.

Laughing, Steve rolls to his feet. “Oh, you asked for it now! You better stay quick on those feet, Barnes, cause I’m about to give you some real competition.”

Meowing loudly, Bucky bounds off towards the bedroom, Steve on his heels and the stuffed toy in his mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

“Steve? Steve, please come help me. I can’t do it.” A little girl’s voice pipes up from behind Steve.

Steve doesn’t look up from where he’s bent over Jachike’s tablet, showing him how to change the thickness of his paint brush strokes. “I’ll be there very soon, Chichima. Please return to your seat,” he says in Wakandan.

“But I can’t do it!”

“I’m sure you can.”

“But I’m sure I can’t.”

Steve struggles to suppress a laugh. He adores every single one of his students and he remembers every one of them fondly, even after a year of having taught dozens of different classes. But he always wishes he could clone himself so he could give each of them the support they need. Sadly, there’s just one of him, but he has a secret weapon.

He glances over at the frowning little girl. “Would it help if Bucky gave you some encouragement?” He asks in Wakadan.

He rarely speaks English in class, preferring to use class time to practice his Wakandan, but he’ll chit-chat with the students in English before and after class, giving them the opportunity to practice their English.

She considers it, then nods. “Yes. But you’ll still come help me?”

“Yes, I promise. But I need to finish helping Jachike first.”

She makes a face, but slowly heads back to her seat.

Steve looks over at Bucky, who’s stretched out on the sunny windowsill with his eyes closed, his paws and tail hanging off the edge as he naps. “Buck! Wake up,” he calls over in Wakandan.

Bucky blinks his eyes open and sleepily stares at Steve.

“Please go help Chichima. She needs some encouragement,” he tells him in Wakandan, pointing at Chichima to give the impression that Bucky doesn’t know her name, despite Bucky knowing every single one of Steve’s students as well as he does.

Bucky gets to his feet and yawns as he stretches his front legs, then his back legs. Hopping down from the window sill, he hurries over to Chichima, lightly jumping up onto her table and sitting next to her tablet.

“Hello, Bucky. Do you see how difficult this is? This is very, very difficult,” Chichima tells him.

As Steve resumes helping Jachike, he listens to Bucky let out sympathetic meows. By the time Steve’s wandering over to Chichima, she’s picked up her drawing tool and she’s trying the exercise again under Bucky’s watchful gaze, aided by encouraging meows.

Crouching down next to her seat, Steve glances at her tablet. “Oh, you’re doing the exercise all by yourself! That’s very good Chichima! I’m so proud of you,” he says, giving her a smile.

She’s beaming, her eyes glued to her tablet. “Bucky’s helping me.”

“That’s very good too.” Steve glances at Bucky out of the corner of his eye as Bucky lies down and makes himself comfortable on the table. When he catches Steve’s glance, Bucky gives him a wink and Steve struggles to suppress a laugh.

*             *             *

Clapping his hands, Steve waits for the excited chatter in the sky train car to die down. “Everybody, please find a seat. Does everybody remember where we’re getting off?” He asks in Wakandan.

A dozen voices call back the name of the station and Steve smiles. “Okay, good. Enjoy the ride.”

Walking up the aisle, Steve does a final count to make sure everybody got on board. He’d counted twice already, but a third time’s always good. When he’s satisfied they have everybody, he heads towards the seats in the very back as the train pulls out of the station.

Bako is sitting close to the window, with Bucky lying on his lap. Another student is sitting next to Bako and they’re both petting Bucky and talking to him softly as he twists his head this way and that, basking in the attention.

Steve still can’t believe how time is flying by. He’s been teaching at the school for four years now. Two years ago, they’d allowed him to start teaching some of the more intermediate classes, which means he often gets to teach students who he’d taught in prior years.

Bako had come to see him at the beginning of the term and he’d specifically arranged his classes so he was taking Steve’s classes. During the course, Steve had randomly received an email from Bako, with a new drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge attached. The difference between Bako’s skills from four years ago to now was stunning and Bako told him in the email that he’s going to continue sending Steve new pictures to show him how much he keeps improving.

It had taken Steve an hour to compose himself before he could write back a reply.

“Is Bucky behaving himself, Bako?” He asks in Wakandan.

Bako grins at him and his smile is just as bright as it had been when he’d been a young boy during Steve’s practice teaching days. “Bucky always behaves himself.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You spoil him, that’s why he behaves himself around you.” He looks down and sees the pet carrier by Bako’s feet. “You remember the rules about the bag?”

“Yes, I remember, don’t worry. If any sky train people come, I’ll put Bucky into the bag.”

“Okay, good. Enjoy the ride and I’ll come pick Bucky up before we get off.”

Walking up the aisle, Steve looks for his colleague, Dayo. He finds him, stretched out in his seat and snoring, next to a seat containing their two heavy packs—one filled with everybody’s lunches and the other filled with drawing tablets.

Grinning, Steve puts the packs on the floor and heavily drops into his seat. “Good morning, Dayo!” he says in Wakandan, deliberately speaking louder than the situation warrants.

With a groan, Dayo opens his eyes and glares at him. “Why are you shouting?” He mumbles.

“Because it’s a beautiful day.”

“Because you’re a cruel man, that’s why,” Dayo grumbles and closes his eyes again.

Steve laughs. “I told you not to drink so much palm wine.”

“It was my birthday party. I’m allowed to drink as much as I want.”

“True. And now you’re suffering for it.”

Dayo groans. “You drank more than me. I hate your special soldier juice.”

“Serum.”

“Whatever.” Sighing, Dayo pulls up the hood of his sweater and sinks deeper into his seat, probably trying to avoid the sun as the beams shine into the train car. “I don’t know how you talk me into going with you on these field trips every term.”

“You do it because you love me.”

“I don’t think ‘love’ is the right word.”

Steve laughs and gently elbows him in the side. “Don’t worry, the fresh mountain air will clear your head.”

“I think throwing you out of the train will clear my head.”

Laughing, Steve relaxes into his seat. “Then you’ll be stuck doing the field trip on your own.”

Dayo shrugs. “Bucky will help me. He knows the trails better than me anyway.”

Steve chuckles. “That’s true. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you when we’re close.”

*             *             *

Before they get off the train, Steve shoulders the heavier pack with the tablets and goes back to Bako to put Bucky into his carrier. As usual, Bucky whines and complains about getting in, but once the bag is zipped up and Steve hoists him onto his chest, Bucky’s grumbling dies down.

Getting a group of nearly 20 teenagers out of the train is always stressful, but now that Dayo needs to focus, the man has conquered his hangover and they get everybody off the train. They’ve done this trip half a dozen times already, so Steve and Dayo work as a seamless team.

Steve guides the way out of the station and stops to let Bucky out of the carrier. Bucky leaps out and lands on the dirt ground, stretching and making a big fuss, as if he’d been in the carrier for hours rather than just a few minutes.

Snorting, Steve shakes his head at him with a smile. Stuffing the carrier into his pack, Steve slings it over his back again, then faces the students, with Bucky sitting down next to him. “Alright, everybody. Let’s review: if you get lost, what do you do?” He asks them in Wakandan.

A chorus of ‘Stay where you are’ rises up.

“That’s right. I’ll be able to find you using your phones, so just relax and I’ll find you. Any questions?”

When nobody raises their hands, Steve smiles. “Okay, let’s go. Remember, we need to stay together. I’ll be at the front, Dayo will be at the back.”

And off they go.

As always, it’s really Bucky who leads the way, bounding down the dirt trail as Steve follows him, the chattering students and Dayo on his heels.

No matter how many times he’s been in these woods, Steve always feels such a sense of amazement at the beauty around him. The trees tower over them, thick vines hanging from them and the rest of the forest is a dense mix of luscious green ferns, plants and beautiful flowers of different colors. Insects buzz around, birds and other creatures are chirping, the students behind him are chatting and laughing and the air smells cool and rich with the perfume of flowers and other scents.

Bucky races back and forth between the trail up ahead and Steve, bounding through low-lying plants and stopping to sniff things along the way. They’ve done this trip enough times that Bucky already knows exactly where they’re going and he comes to a stop when he reaches his favourite hollow tree.

Climbing inside, Bucky stands up and sticks his head out of the hole, meowing enthusiastically at Steve as he approaches.

Steve grins, but stays quiet until the students start noticing where Bucky is. That gets them laughing, yelling and pointing as they pull out their phones to take pictures.

Bako claps his hands and he’s bouncing around from excitement. “I know this tree! This was the picture Kesandu showed on your first day teaching, right?”

Steve blinks. He can’t believe Bako remembers that. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Of course! It was such a great drawing.”

“Well, now you get a chance to make your own. Everybody please spread out, take out your pillows or blankets to sit on and I’ll hand out the tablets. Our first project for today will be sketching this tree with Bucky being our model.”

Taking off his pack, he opens it and Dayo appears by his elbow. Steve pulls out a handful of tablets and gives them to Dayo to distribute as the students find places to sit and get comfortable. Once everybody’s ready, Steve crouches down next to the tree and wiggles his eyebrows at Bucky, who’s meowing enthusiastically, his head poking out of the tree.

“Are you alright, Buck? Ready to be a good model?”

Bucky meows loudly and doesn’t nod his head, but he does turn his head and wink at Steve when he knows nobody else can see him.

“Alright, everybody, please pay attention. We’ll be doing this sketch in ink. Please don’t use a stroke thickness higher than 4. The main focus will be depth. You can see the tree is hollow, yes?”

“Yes!” The students call back.

“And the tree has many branches too. You need to use the skills we learned last week to show all of these features. You don’t need to include many details, but I want to see you demonstrate a good understanding of how to portray depth. Any questions?”

The students are shifting around impatiently, their tablets already powered on and the drawing tools in their hands.

“Good, okay, go ahead and start. We’ll be here for about thirty minutes. Dayo and I will come around to help you.”

*             *             *

Sitting on one of the recliners in the palace garden, Steve is marking assignments on his tablet with Bucky lying on the chair next to him, comfortably stretched out and sleeping in the warmth of the sun.

“Steve! Bucky! There you are!”

Glancing up, Steve sees Shuri hurrying towards them. Bucky opens his eyes and blinks sleepily, letting out a quiet meow when he recognizes Shuri.

“Hello, Shuri.”

She’s got a huge smile on her face, but she’s also frowning a bit. “I’ve been trying to call you! I sent a million messages,” she says in Wakandan.

“Oh. Sorry, I left my phone inside. What happened?”

She rolls her eyes at him before her excitement overtakes her again. “I did it!”

Steve blinks. “Okay…did what?”

“I figured out how to undo Bucky’s brain damage!”

For a second, Steve has no idea what she’s talking about. It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell her that Bucky clearly doesn’t have any brain damage. He’s lying right here, dozing on the chair, happy as can be.

But then the meaning of her words becomes clear and he sits up with a lurch. “You’re serious?!”

Bucky’s head jerks up and he stares at Shuri, letting out a loud meow.

“Yes! We’ve just finished the last round of testing and everything is working perfectly.”

“So…”

“So, this means we can transfer Bucky back!”

Steve freezes, his mind having trouble processing this information. It’s been almost five years since the transfer and he’s gotten accustomed to Bucky being a cat. In fact, it’s been months since  he’s even thought about the transfer or the body Bucky used to have. “Back?”

Shuri frowns at him. “Yes. This was always supposed to be temporary, remember? We can transfer Bucky back into his human body and if things go well, he should be able to fully control it.”

Still having difficulty keeping up with this abrupt change, Steve gapes at Bucky, who’s sitting up and staring at Shuri with wide eyes. Uncharacteristically, Bucky’s silent.

“You—the—so you tested the procedure?”

“Of course! You know I’ve been working on this for years. We finalized the technology about six months ago and now we’ve finished our last round of testing.”

There are so many questions and thoughts running through Steve’s mind. He’s gotten accustomed to their slow, easy lives and being faced with such a massive development is leaving him reeling. “I—Shuri, I’m sorry, but I need time to process this. So does Bucky.”

She nods. “I understand. I’ll give you a few minutes.” Sitting down on a chair across from him, she calmly pulls out her phone and starts typing on it.

Blinking at her, Steve transfers his gaze to Bucky. This whole thing is surreal. Here he is—marking student assignments, Bucky’s sitting next to him—but it’s not really Bucky, is it? Just because Steve’s gotten used to Bucky’s new body doesn’t mean it’s his body. And Steve’s completely forgotten about that.

Bucky meows softly at him and jumps from his chair onto Steve’s lap, sitting down to face Steve. But Steve can feel Bucky shifting around nervously and he keeps looking away from Steve, like he’s having trouble processing this information too.

Okay, Steve needs to think.

So Shuri’s perfected the technology that will fix Bucky’s brain damage. Which means Bucky can be transferred back into his human body and he’ll be able to control his human body.

Which means Steve will get human Bucky back.

A Bucky who can talk to him in his real voice. A Bucky who can smile at him. A Bucky who can hug him properly. A Bucky who can laugh.

Steve finds himself getting overwhelmed at those thoughts and he’s shaking.

Bucky meows softly and climbs up Steve’s chest with his front paws to wrap his front legs around his neck while resting his head on Steve’s shoulder. Out of instinct, Steve wraps his hands around Bucky’s back, petting him gently and feeling Bucky’s soft head by his chin.

He’s used to hugging Bucky like this…and the thought that he’ll actually get to hug the human version of Bucky again is overwhelming.

It takes him several minutes to calm down enough to start thinking practically. He keeps holding Bucky close, hearing him meowing softly and that helps him focus. “Shuri?”

“Yes?”

Out of habit, he keeps speaking in Wakandan, finding comfort in the familiar words. “What’s the risk? Last time, there was a big risk when we transferred Bucky over. Is there the same risk now?”

“Unfortunately, yes. There’s also a risk when we do the procedure to fix the brain damage. Whenever the brain is manipulated, there are risks.”

Bucky meows softly, sounding scared. Steve tightens his grip on him and rubs his chin over Bucky’s head. “What if—what if Bucky doesn’t want to do the transfer?”

“That’s fine, it’s his choice. But his cat body is now 8 years old. An average cat life expectancy is 15 years, so he’s about middle aged now and he could delay the transfer for a while, but eventually we’ll have to transfer him into a new host body before this one dies.”

“Would the risk of that be less than transferring him back into his human body?”

“No. The risk is always the same, it doesn’t matter where we transfer him to. So eventually, a transfer will have to be done if we want Bucky to keep living.”

Sighing, Steve rubs Bucky’s back, Bucky’s tail flicking around. Bucky’s gone quiet, which is never a good sign. “So we’ll have to take the risk at some point.”

“Yes. If we just transfer him into a new cat body, we don’t have to do the repair work so there’s a little less risk but if we keep transferring him from cat host to cat host, we’ll have to repeat the process roughly every 10 to 15 years. There’s risk every single time we do it.”

“Do you think the risk will lessen if we wait a while longer? Bucky’s only 8 years old.”

“Well, no. Bucky’s in this 30s. His cat body is 8 years old, yes.”

Damn. There he goes again, forgetting that Bucky hasn’t always been like this. Get a grip, Rogers. “Do you think the risk will lessen if we wait?”

“I don’t think so. We’ve taken the transfer technology as far as we can take it. The risks aren’t associated with the technology, but with the brain manipulation itself and the many variables that are part of that. There’s nothing we can do to change that.”

Bucky’s still silent, pressing his warm body against Steve.

“I—we…need time to think about it.”

She smiles softly. “Of course. Take all the time you want and ask me if you have any questions. If you decide to wait a few years, that’s fine. The equipment is set up from our last testing, but I can move everything into storage. The choice is yours.”

*             *             *

They’re both feeling a bit shaken, so once Shuri leaves, Steve scoops up his tablet and holds Bucky in his other arm as they head back home, Bucky clinging to Steve.

When they get inside, Steve sits down on the couch and cradles Bucky close, petting him and rubbing his face against Bucky’s, who meows softly at him.

Steve hates that he’s once again having to face the possibility of losing Bucky. These last five years have been amazing. He wishes Bucky’s cat body could live a hundred more years—like Steve probably will—but wishes like that are pointless. He’ll have to accept the risk of doing another transfer, and if the risk is the same no matter where they transfer Bucky to, then it makes sense to transfer Bucky back into his human body.

When Bucky meows softly and rubs his furry face against Steve’s cheek, it suddenly dawns on Steve that he’s been forgetting about a vital fact.

This isn’t his choice. Unlike last time, Bucky’s perfectly capable of deciding if he wants to do the transfer now or wait. Steve hates that he’s actually glad that he doesn’t have to take responsibility for making this decision again. Once in a lifetime is enough. “Buck?”

Bucky meows and keeps rubbing his face against Steve’s.

“Do you understand what Shuri said?” He’s still speaking to Wakandan.

Pulling back from Steve’s face, Bucky looks at him and nods, his whiskers twitching.

“You sure? You understand that there’s a risk? If something goes wrong, they could lose your consciousness during the transfer and if they can’t get it back, you’d be gone.”

Bucky meows sadly, but then he places his paws on Steve’s face and meows firmly.

Steve makes a face. “I know, I know. We don’t have a choice, do we? Not really. We have to transfer you at some point or you’ll die anyway.” All of a sudden, anger rushes through him and that brings his English words back. “Why can’t we ever get a break?! Why does life always kick us like this when we finally found a little bit of happ—”

Meowing loudly at Steve, Bucky presses his paw against Steve’s lips, shushing him. Bucky keeps meowing and Steve knows exactly what he’s saying. Reaching up, Steve presses Bucky’s paw more firmly against his lips and kisses it, then holds it in his hand, gently rubbing his soft paw.

“Okay, I’ll stop. These are the cards we got dealt and we gotta figure out how to use ‘em.”

Bucky nods and rubs his face against Steve’s again.

Steve sighs softly. “So you wanna do this soon? It’s your choice.”

Bucky pull his face back and nods, having fallen silent again.

Fear twists in Steve’s stomach, but he knows delaying things is pointless. He’ll have to face the possibility of losing Bucky again and that’s just a fact. In addition, it’s Bucky’s life and he gets to choose when he wants to take on that risk. “Okay. I’ll tell Shuri.”

Bucky wraps his front legs around Steve’s neck, burying his face in Steve’s neck and pressing his body against Steve’s chest. Steve holds him close, feeling Bucky’s warm little body against his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

Steve takes Bucky with him when the medical staff go to the long-term cryo storage facility to get Bucky’s human body. They’re both silent during the trip from the storage facility back to the palace’s medical center, despite the surreal atmosphere: Bucky’s consciousness in a cat’s body, which is sitting on Steve’s lap, while Bucky’s human body is frozen in the cryo unit next to them.

When they’re in the medical center, Steve and Bucky stay outside the room where they’re defrosting Bucky. Cat-Bucky is in Steve’s arms and his paws are pressed against the window as they watch. Steve rubs Bucky’s soft belly and carefully watches the monitors. He has no doubt that the medical staff can do what they’ve done multiple times before and defrosting of Bucky’s body will go well.

He watches the flat line on the heart monitor and a thrill of excitement runs through him when the line jumps to life, slowly showing the squiggles that mean Bucky’s human body is coming back to life. His heart’s being controlled by machines, but it’s a good sign.

“You see the heart monitor, Buck? It’s showing your heart’s beating again.”

Bucky meows softly.

It’s bizarre to be talking to one Bucky, while the other is slowly coming to life. Steve isn’t even letting himself think about how amazing it’ll be to have Bucky back in his human body. In order not to let his anxiety turn him into a mess, he has to focus on one step at a time.

Once Bucky’s human body has stabilized, Shuri tells Steve and Bucky that she’ll need a few hours to get everything set up.

“You should both eat something while you wait. You’ll both need your strength.”

That sounds like good advice, so Steve carries Bucky back to their apartment and makes them lunch. Bucky refuses to leave Steve and clings to his front while Steve’s making food, his paws wrapped around Steve’s neck. Steve holds him with one hand and prepares their lunch with the other, getting as much comfort from Bucky’s warm body being pressed against him as Bucky is. Bucky insists on staying in Steve’s lap while they eat, standing on his hind legs with his paws on the table and eating very slowly. Steve can tell Bucky’s barely eating anything, but he doesn’t want to push him.

It reminds Steve that these could be the last few hours he’ll ever spend with Bucky. If the transfer goes wrong, that’ll be it—today will be the day he loses Bucky again, but this time it’ll be permanent.

Clenching his jaw, Steve puts his fork down and wraps his hands around Bucky as he eats and Steve presses his face against the back of Bucky’s soft head.

Bucky meows softly and turns around, climbing up Steve’s chest and rubbing his face against Steve’s.

“I’m scared, Buck. I know you are too. I can’t stand the thought of losing you,” he whispers, his voice shaking.

Bucky’s tail twitches anxiously and he meows, sounding just as scared as Steve.

Closing his eyes, Steve tries to absorb as much of Bucky’s presence as he can. It occurs to him that this time, he could ask Bucky to do what he’d pleaded with him the last time: that if things go wrong, could Bucky wait for him when he gets to the gates of Heaven? Because Steve had been sure last time that he’d follow Bucky soon after, just like he’d done when he thought he’d lost Bucky the first time.

But to his surprise, the urge to do the same thing this time isn’t very big. Yes, living without Bucky will leave him reeling, but he’s built himself a good life over the last five years. He has friends, he has a job and he’s enjoying life. Much of that can be credited to Bucky supporting him, but Steve had walked down this path on his own.

Would Bucky want Steve to follow him right away?

It occurs to Steve that this is the first time that Steve can actually ask Bucky about it beforehand. The last two times, he hadn’t had the chance to get things sorted out with Bucky before he’d been left to make decisions on his own. “Buck?”

Bucky meows.

“What—what do you think I should do if things don’t go well? If I lose you? Do you want me to follow you?”

Jerking his face back, Bucky stares at Steve. His tail freezes, then it starts flicking around wildly and Bucky meows loudly, shaking his head. For good measure, he bares his teeth, hisses at Steve and yowls loudly. His message is clear: don’t you dare think about it, Rogers.

Steve leans back at Bucky’s aggressive display, not accustomed to Bucky acting like this. But Bucky’s not letting up, he digs his claws into Steve’s chest through his shirt and keeps yowling at him.

“Jesus, Buck, stop! I get it, I get it!” Pulling Bucky’s paws out of his shirt and off his skin, Steve gently squeezes his paws as Bucky’s claws slowly retract. “I get it, I promise! You want me to live.”

Bucky nods firmly, the tip of his tail twitching. Then he bares his teeth again and hisses at Steve to make his point extra clear.

Steve can’t help but smile. “You’re saying you’re gonna kick my butt if you find me up there before my time, huh?”

Nodding, Bucky narrows his eyes at him, his ears twitching.

Smiling softly, Steve nods. “Message received, don’t worry.”

Staring at Steve for a long moment, Bucky climbs up, gently puts his paws on Steve’s face and meows softly at him.

Steve knows what he’s asking. “Yeah, Buck. I promise. I’ll miss you like hell, but I’ll keep going. You promise you’ll watch over me?”

Bucky nods and leans closer to him to nuzzle his face, meowing quietly. _I promise_.

Steve wraps his hands around Bucky’s body and holds him close. “I love you,” he whispers.

A soft series of meows is Bucky’s response and Steve knows exactly what he’s saying.

*             *             *

In a reversal from what happened during the last transfer, Steve stays close to Bucky’s cat body while Bucky’s human body is on the bed behind him. Steve and Bucky had stared at it for a long moment when they’d come in—Bucky in Steve’s arms and clinging to him—but Steve wants to stay focused on Bucky.

When it’s time to put Bucky on the bed, they hug each other hard and Steve kisses his head. “I love you, Buck,” he whispers into Bucky’s soft black fur. Bucky responds with quiet meows and then it’s time for Steve to put Bucky down on the bed as the staff start attaching devices to him and inject him with the sedative.

Stroking one of Bucky’s soft black paws, Steve gives him a smile. It’s a shaky smile, but Steve’s doing his best to stay strong. “I’ll stay with you until the end, I promise.”

Bucky meows softly and stretches out his other paw as he’s lying on his side. Reaching over, Steve holds one paw in each hand, rubbing them and smiling at Bucky, trying to be brave and keep his tears back. If this is the end, he doesn’t want their last memories of each other to be full of sadness, so Steve has to stay strong. “It’s not gonna hurt and you’re gonna be fine. No matter what happens, you’ll be fine. I’ll either see you in a few hours, or I’ll talk to you every single day and you better be listening up there, okay?”

Bucky’s eyes are starting to drop from the sedation but he still manages to nod and keep his eyes on Steve.

Steve keeps smiling and rubbing his soft paws. “Go to sleep, Buck. I’ll take care of everything, I promise. I love you and I’ll talk to you soon.”

When Bucky’s eyes finally drop closed, Steve feels his heart beginning to ache and that old fear settling around him.

“Steve, would you like to stay until the transfer is complete?” The technician asks him in Wakandan.

“Yes, please. I don’t want him to be alone,” Steve responds in Wakandan.

“Of course. Just please be ready to move if you’re in the way.”

“Absolutely.”

As the machines around them power up and Shuri starts giving instructions, Steve keeps his eyes on Bucky’s little cat body, watching him breathing and stroking his paws.

The hours slowly go by.

Just like last time, Shuri counts down once the transfer starts and Steve watches the monitor showing Bucky’s brainwave monitor, mentally preparing himself. He keeps quietly talking to Bucky all the way until the lines on the monitor go flat.

Bucky’s gone.

The activity immediately switches over to Bucky’s human body and Steve finds himself torn. On one hand, he needs to go be with Bucky’s human body—but that’s when he realizes how cruel this situation is.

The little black cat lying unconscious on the bed will go back to being all by itself. It might not have a brain that’s capable of supporting its body, but Bucky had lived in this cat’s body for five years. Steve spent five years sleeping, eating and doing everything with this cat. Even though he’d never known the cat when it had been in control of its own body, Steve cares about this little cat and he can’t stand the thought of it quietly dying, without anybody caring.

“Excuse me?” Steve asks one of the technicians, who’s removing some equipment from the cat’s body.

“Yes?”

“What—what’s going to happen to the cat?”

She blinks at him. “The cat’s brain dead.”

“I know. But what you planning on doing with him?”

“For now, we’re going to keep him on life support. Long term life support for stray animals isn’t an option without external financial support, but that’s something we can discuss later.”

“What—we—I—” Steve feels overwhelmed. He can’t believe he didn’t spare a single thought to what would happen to Bucky’s cat body. But then he realizes that it’s not just his decision to make. First, he needs to focus on Bucky to make sure the transfer goes well. If it doesn’t, that’s a whole other issue to deal with. If the transfer does go well, then Bucky might want equal input into deciding what will happen with the little cat. If he doesn’t, then Steve will decide.

In any case, the cat will be fine on life support for the next while and Steve has to focus on Bucky.

Releasing the cat’s little black paws, Steve kisses the cat’s head. “I’m gonna go be with Buck, but I’ll be back in a while, okay? I promise.”

Sliding his chair over to Bucky’s human body, he stares at the brainwave monitor. It’s still showing a flat line, but Shuri sounds calm and confident as she’s giving orders, so things seem to be going well.

Steve’s heart starts racing. He still refuses to allow himself to get overly excited about what will happen if Bucky actually wakes up—because it’s a question of ‘if’, not ‘when’.

Finding a space next to Bucky where he’s out of the way, Steve picks up Bucky’s hand. It feels so strange to hold his large, human hand. There’s no fur on it and it feels much cooler than the little paws Steve had been holding for several hours.

Staring at Bucky, he’s finding himself studying every tiny detail on Bucky’s face. He and Bucky hadn’t visited Bucky’s human body very often—neither of them had seen the point of it and it mostly just upset both of them—and although Bucky’s human body had lived in Steve’s memory every single day since he’d last seen him and heard him speak, it feels like a hundred years have passed, not just five.

He’s so busy staring at Bucky’s face that he completely misses the brainwave monitor suddenly jumping to life.

“We got it! The transfer’s complete!” Shuri’s excited voice penetrates Steve’s silent marveling over Bucky’s human body and Steve jerks his gaze to the monitor, seeing little jagged peaks and valleys on it.

Grinning, Steve feels a wave of relief wash over him. “Buck, I don’t know if you can hear me, but we got your consciousness back into your body. The transfer worked!”

So now they’re back to where they’d been five years ago, but there’s no time to celebrate. The team switches over to setting up the technology which will hopefully repair the damage to Bucky’s brain.

If the technology doesn’t work, Steve knows he’ll have to prepared himself to make another hard choice: put Bucky back into his cat body or wait a while to see if Shuri can fix the technology.

It occurs to him that he should have asked Bucky about all this before the transfer. Damn it! They’d been so focused on the transfer going well that they hadn’t even thought about what they’d do if the brain repair work didn’t go well and Bucky would be left in the exact same situation as five years ago. Which means Steve will be the one to authorize them to transfer Bucky back into the black cat’s body, or maybe a younger cat. In any case, that’ll mean doing more transfers.

Steve sends a mental prayer to whoever is listening to please, please, please not make him have to live through another transfer.

*             *             *

The repair work takes hours. At one point, Shuri stretches and comes over to Steve.

“The process will take a long time, Steve,” she tells him in Wakandan. “You can stay here but I think it’s better if you go stretch your legs and rest. Things are going well and Bucky will need your support when he wakes up.”

That desperate hope lights up in Steve’s belly again. “You’re sure it’s going well?”

Shuri grins. “Of course! I told you I’ve been working on this technology for years. I wouldn’t have suggested trying it if it wasn’t perfect. Everything will be fine, I promise. It might take Bucky a while to be back on his feet, but he’ll get there.”

Squeezing Bucky’s hand, Steve grins and leans over him. “You hear that, Buck? Shuri says everything’s gonna go well.”

“You should get some rest. I’ll let you know when we’re done and then we’ll wake him up.”

Steve shots her a worried look. “You won’t wake him up if I’m not here, right?”

She smile softly. “Of course not.”

Squeezing Bucky’s large human hand, Steve kisses his human forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

It gives him a chance to use the bathroom, eat and check his school email. He’d taken two weeks off of work, not knowing how things would go but he still wants to keep up to date with what’s going on.

His colleagues know that his time off has something to do with Bucky, but they assume it only has to do with Human-Bucky. Over the years, Steve had stumbled into a few situations where he’d wanted to share more about his past, but his audience got understandably confused when Steve kept referencing a Human-Bucky when they knew his cat was also named Bucky.

After discussions with Bucky, they’d decided to keep the details of the transfer between them. The transfer technology might not be ground-breaking in Wakanda, but Steve had learned that it’s a very expensive procedure and it’s out of financial reach for most people. Steve’s heard many controversial stories over the years of people who desperately wanted to transfer their sick or dying loved ones into a new host but not having the money to do it before the person passed away. Cryostasis is also a very expensive procedure which many people can’t afford.

Nobody had ever mentioned the cost of these procedures to Steve and he’d come to realize just how lucky he and Bucky are. Having lost access to all of his money after he’d become a fugitive, Steve wouldn’t have been able to pay for the transfer or long term cryostasis if he hadn’t befriended T’Challa. There’s no way to know exactly what Bucky would have done if cryostasis hadn’t been an option for him, but it probably wouldn’t have been anything good. It made Steve realize how much money the Royal family had been spending on him and Bucky without ever expecting anything in return. Following his own insistence, Steve had started paying the palace a monthly sum a few years ago but he’d never even though about how expensive Bucky’s medical care is.

He hadn’t wanted to make things awkward between himself and his colleagues, since some of them aren’t too pleased with Steve-the-foreigner being allowed to live in the royal palace for free in the first place, so he’d kept the details of Bucky’s medical situation private. If anybody asked about what happened to the Bucky in his stories, he told them he and Bucky had been separated when he’d become a fugitive and he didn’t know what had happened to him. When he’d adopted his cat, he’d named the cat ‘Bucky’ for nostalgic reasons. That usually made people look at him with sympathy and they’d stop asking for more details.

It hadn’t felt nice to lie to his colleagues, but Steve reasoned that it’s not his fault T’Challa and his family had offered Bucky these options without ever asking for something in return or mentioning the associated costs. Plus, the story always left things open-ended so if Human-Bucky suddenly shows up, people won’t demand lengthy explanations.

Hopefully.

When Steve had asked for his two weeks off, he’d explained that Bucky had miraculously found his way to Wakanda but he was in bad shape and needed Steve’s help during his recovery. That will nicely explain Human-Bucky’s sudden presence.

It occurs to Steve that he’ll have to come up with some kind of excuse regarding where Cat-Bucky had gone. Once again, that makes him think about the poor little black cat currently on life support in the medical center, but he and Bucky will deal with that when Bucky’s back on his feet.

Well… _if_ Bucky ever gets back on his feet.

No, Rogers. Stop it! He needs to stay positive. On that note, he needs to focus on his work emails and staying distracted until Bucky’s procedure is done. Scrolling through his work emails is a good mental break from the anxiety he’s been dealing with and he’s feeling refreshed by the time Shuri calls him to let him know that the repair work is done.

“It’s time to wake Bucky up!”

Steve doesn’t remember racing back to the medical wing in the palace, but when he gets there, he’s shaking so hard that he needs to sit down and his heart is pounding with excitement. Clutching Bucky’s hand, he stares at him. “You’re gonna wake up soon, Buck. I’m gonna be right here so you don’t have to be scared. Everything’s gonna be fine, I promise.”

Shuri puts her hand on Steve’s shoulder and he blindly reaches up with his other hand to grab it, squeezing it hard. Glancing up at her, Steve can see she’s grinning just as hard as he is.

*             *             *

It takes Bucky a while to wake up. Steve is perched on the edge of his seat, watching every breath that Bucky takes and every muscle twitch.

Finally, Bucky’s eyes start to move beneath his eyelids.

“Buck? I’m right here. Everything’s okay. They transferred you back into your human body, so you might feel a bit weird. Can you open your eyes?”

Holding his breath, Steve watches Bucky, praying harder than he’d ever prayed before.

Slowly, Bucky’s eyes open.

Just that little act is something that Bucky hadn’t been able to do when he’d been in a coma the first time around, so the relief Steve feels nearly makes him slide out of his chair. He hears the medical staff around him letting out quiet cheers and Shuri is shaking Steve’s shoulder and doing a little dance behind him.

Bucky’s blinking, his eyes staying open for longer and longer each time. Slowly, his eyes start moving around.

Getting off his chair, Steve squeezes Bucky’s hand and leans over him. “Buck? Can you see me?”

It’s a great sign that Bucky’s eyes immediately focus on Steve. Then a small smile tugs on the corners of Bucky’s lips. He opens his mouth as if he wants to speak and he lets out a small sound.

A nurse appears by Steve’s elbow. “Bucky? Do you want something to drink? Your throat is probably very dry. If you want to try speaking, you should have some water first.”

Bucky listens to the nurse’s words and nods. It’s only after Bucky responds that Steve realizes the nurse was speaking Wakandan and relief rushes through him. It’s a small sign that Bucky remembers some of what happened to him during the last five years. At this point, none of them know how much Bucky remembers, but this is a good sign.

Steve releases Bucky’s hand in preparation to step back and give the nurse space to help Bucky drink, but Bucky lets out a soft sound of protest and weakly wiggles his fingers.

“You want me to keep holding your hand?”

Giving a tiny nod, Bucky stares at Steve, looking worried.

Steve still can’t get over what’s happening. Here’s Bucky: moving his fingers, nodding his head, making sounds, making faces and he’s doing it all with his human body! He looks exhausted and he’s pale, but it’s definitely Bucky.

Picking up Bucky’s hand again, Steve presses it to his own face. “Okay, I’m staying right here. Don’t worry. You want me to help you drink?”

Bucky nods and Steve helps the nurses raise Bucky’s bed so he’s sitting up comfortable. A nurse hands Steve a bottle of water with a straw and Steve gently slides it into Bucky’s mouth and waits for him to drink.

Bucky’s moving very slowly, which makes sense considering his body has been frozen for five years.

When he’s done drinking, the doctors and nurses check all the monitors attached to him and do some basic testing. They ask him to move his arm, wiggle his toes and they touch his legs and other parts of his body to test if he can feel everything.

The testing goes very well and Steve’s grin grows bigger every time Bucky nods and makes a little affirmative sound to indicate he can feel and move the body part they’re checking.

Once the staff is satisfied, the doctor tells Bucky he needs plenty of rest and he should stay in the medical center for a few days, but everything looks very good.

At those words, Steve feels Bucky lightly squeezing his hand and he’s smiling at Steve. He mouths the words ‘thank you’ in Wakandan to the staff.

When it’s just Steve, Bucky and Shuri left in the room, Bucky releases Steve’s hand and stretches his hand towards Shuri. She’s been quietly standing behind Steve, not wanting to interfere with the medical staff’s tests. Steve slides over a bit and Shuri steps up beside Bucky’s bed and takes his hand.

“Hello, Bucky. I don’t know if I should say I haven’t seen you for years, or that I saw you just a few hours ago.”

Bucky smiles and manages a weak chuckle. Pulling on Shuri’s hand, he brings it to his lips and kisses the back of it, gratitude shining in his eyes.

She grins back. “You’re welcome. I’m so glad everything went well.”

Their hands drop to the blanket as Bucky exhausts his limited energy reserves and Shuri gently untangles her hand from his and grabs Steve’s hand to join it with Bucky’s again. “Okay, I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll come visit tomorrow, okay?”

Bucky nods and watches her leave before focusing back on Steve.

Steve still can’t believe what he’s seeing. He has Bucky back. He really has Bucky back! Tears brim his eyes and he squeezes Bucky’s hand hard.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he breathes out.

Bucky smiles, looking exhausted but happy. Lifting their joined hands, he taps his own lips, trying to pass on a message.

Grinning through the tears which are threatening to fall, Steve leans over Bucky and gently kisses him on the lips. Pulling back, he smiles down at Bucky. “You have no idea how much I missed doing that.”

Bucky smiles and untangles their hands long enough to crook his index finger at Steve, wanting him to come closer again. Steve leans down again and gives him another kiss and this time, he feels Bucky’s cool lips gently kissing him back.

Resting his forehead against Bucky’s, Steve takes a shaky breath. All the pent-up tension he’d been feeling is being released and tears roll down his face.

Bucky makes a small noise and pulls his hand up. Moving slowly, he gently wipes away the tears on Steve’s face. Steve can’t get past the irony that this is exactly what had happened after Bucky had woken up from the first transfer, five years ago.

Laying his head down on Bucky’s chest, Steve rubs his face against his hospital gown, feeling the warmth of Bucky’s body and the gently thudding from his heart beating. Bucky’s hand slowly runs up his arm and comes to rest on his back, rubbing soothingly.

*             *             *

When Bucky wakes up the next morning, Steve is right next to him again, having spent the night on a cot next to his bed.

“Morning, Buck. How’re you feeling?” He’s constantly switching back and forth between English and Wakandan these days and so far, Bucky’s given no sign that he doesn’t understand what’s being said.

Bucky swallows and he looks more alert than the day before. To Steve’s surprise, Bucky responds. “Imma a little stiff. Like I’ve been frozen to the bone for a while,” he mumbles, his voice faint and hoarse but his eyes are twinkling.

Steve laughs. Oh, he definitely has Bucky back! “Frozen for five years and the first words outta your mouth is wisecracking. Why ain’t I surprised?”

Bucky smiles. “Cause you know me way too well,” he mumbles. “Ain’t I…gonna get some sugar this morning? I’m running…real low.”

Chuckling, Steve leans over and kisses him, feeling Bucky kiss him back and letting out a happy moan.

“I love you,” Steve whispers against his lips.

Bucky grins. “What a coincidence. I love you too.”

“Imagine that.”

“Yeah, that works out real well.”

Reaching back, Steve pulls over a chair and sits down, holding Bucky’s hand. “How much do you remember from the last five years?”

“Everything. It was a little weird getting used to being in Bishiya’s mind but—”

Steve frowns. He recognizes the Wakandan word for ‘tree’ but he has no idea what Bucky’s talking about. “What tree?”

Bucky smiles. “Oh. That’s the cat’s name. Well, not officially. But he loves the forest as much as we do. The hollow tree is his favorite place to be.”

“So…his name is really Tree?”

“No,” Bucky chuckles weakly. “We were sharing a body so I felt weird thinking of him as just ‘cat’ so when we learned how to say tree in Wakandan from Shuri’s plant program on your phone, I started calling him Bishiya.”

Steve blinks. “You two were sharing a body? He was supposed to be brain dead.”

“Yes and no. Bishiya couldn’t use his own body and he couldn’t think, but I could feel this other presence in there with me. It’s hard to explain but—” A coughing fit interrupts him and Steve jumps up to help him drink some water.

When Bucky’s resting again, he frowns at Steve. “What…what was I saying?”

“We can keep talking later, Buck. Don’t wear yourself out.”

“I’ve got years of stuff I’ve been waiting to tell you, so I’m gonna talk until I lose my voice or I fall asleep. Whether you listen is up to you but even if you don’t, I’m gonna keep talking at your ugly mug until your ears fall off.”

Steve laughs and squeezes Bucky’s hand. “I’m never gonna get tired of you talking, Bucky Barnes. Never.”

“You might regret saying that.”

“Never.”

Grinning, Bucky gestures for Steve to come closer so he can kiss him, pressing his warm lips to Steve’s and sighing happily. “So what was I saying?”

“You were telling me about Bishiya and you sharing a mind.”

“Right. So no, we weren’t really sharing anything. I just felt his emotions. Not real strong, but they were like a voice in the back of your head. Way back there, not enough to interfere but still there. I learned what he liked and what he didn’t like.”

The door of Bucky’s room slides open and one of the nurses steps inside, smiling when she sees that Bucky’s awake. “Good morning, Bucky!”

“Good morning!”

“Oh! You’re back to talking!” She sounds delighted.

Bucky grins. “Yeah. I have a lot of talking to catch up on so I thought I’d get started.”

“I’m thrilled to hear that! We’re going to do some more testing and see how you’re feeling. If things go well today, you should be able to go home tomorrow. So how are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m ready to go for a hike right this second. Sky train here I come.”

The nurse laughs and presses buttons on the monitors recording Bucky’s vital signs, studying them.

Steve stays out of the way, once again struck by how amazing it is that Bucky seems to remember everything that’s happened over the last five years. Mentally, he’d been preparing for the possibility of Bucky not remembering the last five years or anything at all, so it’s a wonderful surprise that they can pick up exactly where they’d left off before the transfer.

The only difference is that Bucky’s finally back in his human body. A human body that can talk properly and hug properly, not to mention do a lot of other wonderful things.


	9. Chapter 9

“So I’ll get Class 7 started on Unit 5 on Tuesday,” Dayo tells him in Wakandan.

Steve frowns as he sits on the couch, his phone pressed to his ear. “Unit 5? I thought you just finished Unit 3?”

He keeps his voice low so he doesn’t wake Bucky from his nap in the bedroom.

“Yes, but I know you love teaching Unit 4 and there’s no reason I have to start it now. I’ll start them on Unit 5 and you can finish it and go back to teach your favorite unit.”

Steve grins. “Thanks, Dayo. And I promise, I’m bringing you that bottle of palm wine as soon as I’m back.”

“I won’t allow you to step through the front door unless I see that bottle in your hands.”

Laughing quietly, Steve slumps against the couch. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Taking over your intermediate classes is easy. It’s Kesandu you need to be thanking for taking the young ones.”

“I’m going to come back to work with a bottle of palm wine in one hand and a box of homemade Shuku Shuku in the other.”

Dayo makes an unhappy noise. “Do I get some Shuku Shuku too?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You hate coconut.”

“Yes, but I like free things and I’m working very, very hard teaching your classes. I think I deserve more free things.”

Snorting, Steve smiles. “I’ll make you some Puff Puffs, okay? Will that satisfy you?”

“Yes, that should be good enough.” There’s a beat before Dayo starts laughing.

They chat for a while longer about different things and Dayo also asks him how Bucky’s doing. It means a lot to Steve that his friends and colleagues don’t just care about him but they’re expressing concern for a person they think they’ve never met before.

After hanging up with Dayo, Steve wanders to the bedroom and peeks inside.

Bucky’s awake and drawing on a drawing tablet. To Steve’s amusement, it’s set on the very basic setting still and Bucky’s just using his fingers to swirl paint around the drawing area.

“Having fun, Barnes?”

Bucky smiles but doesn’t look up from his work. Some things never change, no matter what body he’s in. “It’s a lot nicer doing this with my fingers than my paws. Or Bishiya’s paws. And the colors are great! I love seeing colors properly again!”

Steve sits on the bed and drapes his arm across Bucky’s shoulder, kissing his forehead. “Did you sleep enough?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t wake you up?”

“Nope. I was already awake when you called Dayo. How’s he doing?”

“He’s good.”

“I heard he negotiated his way to getting some Puff Puffs.”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, he did.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows at Steve. “Do I get some Puff Puffs too?”

Wrapping his other arm around Bucky too, Steve laughs, nuzzling Bucky’s long hair. Bucky had spent years meowing longingly at the different Wakandan treats Steve learned to make, knowing he wasn’t allowed to eat any of them because his cat digestive system couldn’t handle them. “I’ll make you whatever the hell you wanna eat, Barnes. You name it, I’ll make it.”

“Well, in that case I want some fresh pineapple jam to go with the Puff Puffs.”

“Consider it done.”

Untangling himself from Steve, Bucky climbs into his lap. Smiling at Steve, he kisses him and wraps his arm around Steve’s neck, nuzzling the side of his face.

Steve holds Bucky close. It feels so different to hold Bucky’s human body as opposed to his smaller cat body. The only thing missing is Bucky’s left arm, but it’s barely noticeable. “I’ve missed you so damn much, Buck. You were here, but it was different.”

“I know. I never minded being in Bishiya’s body except when there were things I couldn’t do properly, like hug you and kiss you.”

Squeezing Bucky tight, Steve closes his eyes and rubs his face against Bucky’s. “You did your best and that meant a lot to me.”

“I told you I loved you every single day,” Bucky mumbles.

“I know you did.”

They’re silent for a while as they cling to each other, enjoying the feeling of doing this in Bucky’s human body.

“Thank you for taking care of me all those years, Rogers.”

Steve chuckles. “That’s what we do, ain’t it? Besides, you took care of me too. I wasn’t doing anything with my life before the transfer. You’re the one who pushed me to go outside and explore the city and start teaching and a thousand other things. I couldn’t have done that without you.”

“I’d get so worried sometimes cause I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell you what you needed to hear.”

Sighing, Steve rubs Bucky’s back. “I won’t lie, I did miss hearing your voice. But I think I always knew what you were trying to say.”

Bucky pulls back and grins at him. “We make a good team, don’t we?”

“We always have.”

“So…” Bucky lets his eyes slowly roam down Steve’s body and his smile changes to a leer. “I’ve just had a great nap so I’ve got a lot of energy.”

Steve grins, following his train of thought. “Do you?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, it just so happens that I’m on vacation from work so I’ve got some spare time.”

“And not filling that spare time with fun things would be a terrible waste, right?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Letting out a laugh, Bucky lets himself fall onto the mattress and tangles his hand in Steve’s shirt to pull him down on top of him.

Steve takes a second to rescue the drawing tablet and put it on the bedside table, then he rolls on top of Bucky and kisses him, groaning against his lips.

*             *             *

“I can’t believe how small some of these trees really are,” Bucky says as they stroll through the palace gardens.

Steve laughs. “It’s a little different looking at things from higher off the ground, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

They’re walking hand in hand down the pathway following the little stream. Bucky’s been cleared by the medical team and they’ve started wandering around the palace and visiting places nearby to give Bucky more exercise and letting him re-familiarize himself with the places he’s been seeing for years but from a different perspective.

“I still can’t get over how colorful everything is!”

Steve laughs. “I remember how weird it was after the serum fixed my color blindness. I never knew the world was so colorful.”

Bucky’s staring at everything and he’s always pulling Steve to a stop so he can study a flower or rock up close. “I’m never gonna get tired of looking at all this.”

They wander to the clearing with the tables and chairs and sit down by the bubbling fountain while Bucky makes a face. “I can’t stretch out on these chairs like I used to.”

“You’ll live, Barnes.” Steve grabs another chair and drags it closer to Bucky. “There. Put your feet on that.”

Stretching out, Bucky makes himself comfortable and closes his eyes, relaxing in the sun as he’s done a thousand times before. Only this time, he’s in a body that can hug and kiss and talk to Steve properly.

Steve sits there and stares at Bucky, watching him relax.

That’s the moment he knows they’re going to be okay. No matter what the future brings, they’re going to be happy here.

Eventually, Bucky frowns. “Hey, so what are you gonna tell the kids when ‘Bucky’ won’t be going to classes with you anymore?”

Chuckling, Steve closes his eyes. “You can still come with me. The window sill is still wide enough for you to sit on. But I don’t think it’ll be a good idea for you to jump up on the tables.”

“Rogers, I’m being serious. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to go with you. Going with you in Bishiya’s body was one thing, but I’m just a regular human now. The kids don’t know that I know them and it would freak them out if they thought some random person who they think they’ve never met before knows who they are. Besides, you don’t need a cheerleader in class and I don’t know anything about drawing. Well, I’ve picked up some things over the years, but I can’t pretend I’m your assistant.”

Opening his eyes, Steve frowns. That’s something he hadn’t even thought of. “I guess I’ll just tell the kids that Cat-Bucky is a bit out of sorts since Human-Bucky came to live with me and he won’t be coming to class with me anymore.”

Bucky makes a face. “They’ll be sad.”

“Yeah, but they’ll get over it eventually. Having you there was more important for me than for them anyway. It was a special treat for them, but they’ll adjust to not having you around.”

“You’re gonna be okay?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, I think so.” He shoots Bucky a confident smile. “I’m comfortable at the school, I’m comfortable with what I’m teaching and I know the kids. It’ll be fine.”

“And I’ll still help you plan lessons and I wanna hear all about the kids. I’m just not gonna be going to classes with you, but nothing else has to change.”

“Of course.”

“So…what the hell am I supposed to do while you’re working?”

“I think you’ve saved up about twenty years worth of vacation over the last seventy years so you can take some time off and just relax. There’s no hurry.”

Bucky frowns. “But I wanna work.”

“And we’ll find you work. But you gotta take your time. Shuri wants to start working on your prosthetic arm so you can focus on that first. You’ll need to be able to use the arm real well if you’re gonna use it for working anyway.”

“Okay.”

Bucky still sounds a bit mopey and Steve turns his head to frown at him. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Barnes, I’m gonna go over there, sit on you and tickle you if you don’t tell me.”

Snorting, Bucky shoots Steve a mock-glare but he sits up and stares at the fountain. “What happened to Bishiya?”

That’s a topic Steve hadn’t been expecting. Sitting up, he prepares himself for a tough conversation. “He’s on life support in the animal clinic. They said they can’t keep him on life support forever without somebody paying for it, but they said they’d give us time to figure out what we wanna do. I wanted to wait until you were ready to talk about it.”

Bucky looks upset at that news. “So he’s dying?”

Steve sighs softly. “Technically, he’s not really alive, Buck. According to the doctors, he’s completely brain dead. The machines are keeping his body alive, but there’s nothing left of his brain.”

“Well, that’s not true. I could feel his emotions so there was still something left of him in there. What if…”

A few seconds go by but when Bucky doesn’t finish his sentence, Steve pushes him. “What if what?”

“Shuri fixed my brain damage, didn’t she? And a human brain is a lot more complicated than a cat’s. Couldn’t she try to fix Bishiya?”

That’s something Steve hadn’t even thought about. But now that he thinks about it, it seems like an obvious question to ask. He hates the idea of losing the little cat as much as Bucky does. They’d both formed bonds with Bishiya in different ways.

“I think we should definitely ask Shuri.”

Bucky gives him a small smile. “Yeah? You don’t think I’m being silly?”

“No, not at all. Bishiya is technically part of our family, ain’t he? And we never give up on family so easily, do we?”

*             *             *

Shuri stares back and forth between them, then she grins and smacks herself in the forehead. “Of course! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!”

Bucky and Steve stare at each other and back at Shuri.

“So…you think it’s possible?” Bucky asks cautiously.

Shuri stares at him like he’s a bit slow. “Possible?! Of course! If you say you felt Bishiya’s emotions a bit that means there’s enough brain structure left to do the repairs,” she explains in Wakandan.

Steve’s heart starts to race and Bucky’s clutching his hand very hard. “Really? You’ll try?”

“Of course! I’ll go get set up!”

“Well, I didn’t mean you had to do it right—”

“Meet me in the animal clinic in two hours!” And she’s out the door.

*             *             *

Once more, Steve finds himself sitting on the floor of the animal clinic and leaning against a wall of kennels while he stares at a small black cat sleeping off its sedative in one of the closed cages.

Only this time, Bucky’s sitting on the floor next to him.

“This was what it was like for you last time, wasn’t it?” Bucky asks.

“Yup. You woke up and you weren’t happy. You remember any of it?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Not really. Everything looked and felt so weird and I could feel Bishiya’s panic but I didn’t know it was Bishiya’s panic and everything was just way too much. I remember curling up on the couch with you when we were in the apartment.”

“That was after you’d calmed down.”

Reaching over, Bucky squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Steve smiles softly. “It wasn’t that I was scared. I thought you would have recognized me earlier so I thought you going nuts meant the transfer hadn’t worked. I thought I was just looking at Bishiya, not you.”

“I still—”

A small noise from the kennel catches their attention and Bucky falls silent as they peer into the dark cage.

Bishiya is waking up, blinking slowly and staring at them.

“His eyes are open, Buck!” Steve whispers, getting excited. They both know what that means. It isn’t Bucky’s brain that’s making Bishiya open his eyes, but his own.

Bucky slides across the floor towards the cage. “Hi, Bishiya! It’s me, Bucky. You remember me, buddy?”

The little black cat doesn’t seem to like Bucky getting so close. He struggles to his feet, his legs shaking and he stumbles towards the back of the cage, trembling.

It’s such a stark contrast to how Bucky had reacted and it makes Steve realize that Bishiya will have a completely different personality from Bucky. He’d been assuming that Bishiya will be the same cat Steve had lived with for five years, but of course, that’s not the case. In a way, Steve hasn’t spent any time with Bishiya yet.

“He’s scared of me, Steve.” Bucky sounds upset.

“Open up the cage and come sit with me, Buck. He just needs time.”

Bucky opens the cage and slides back over to Steve.

Steve wraps his arm around Bucky and rubs his shoulder. “Just relax and give him time. He doesn’t recognize that you’re you. You know who he is but he doesn’t know who we are.”

Bucky’s staring into the kennel. “Talk to him.”

“Me? Shouldn’t you?”

“He doesn’t know my voice, but he should know yours.”

That’s a good point. Steve peers into the dark cage at the trembling cat who’s cowering in the back corner. “Hi, Bishiya. Hi, buddy. It’s me, Steve. I’m your friend, remember? We’ve spent a lot of time together. You wanna come out and say hello? We won’t touch you unless you’re okay with it.”

To both of their surprise, Bishiya freezes and stares at Steve.

Steve keeps talking and eventually, the black cat slowly walks towards the door of the kennel, lifting one paw at a time and keeping a close eye on Steve and Bucky.

They stay frozen, Steve talking and Bucky sitting by his side.

Bishiya steps out of the kennel and tentatively makes his way across the floor towards Steve and Bucky. Steve is sitting the same way he’d been sitting the first time around, with his legs stretched out on the ground.

Now that he’s under the brighter lights, Steve can see Bishiya’s still trembling a bit and he’s moving very slowly, ready to flee at the slightest indication that he or Bucky will hurt him. When he gets to Steve’s feet, he sniffs his shoes and walks along the floor, smelling his pants.

The further along he goes, the more intensely Bishiya sniffs him.

“I think he recognizes your scent,” Bucky whispers.

Steve keeps talking quietly and doesn’t move as Bishiya cautiously climbs onto Steve’s legs, planting each paw very carefully. When he reaches Steve’s lap, he stands still, staring up at Steve’s face.

Looking down at him, Steve can barely restrain himself from hugging the little black cat tightly. He’s missed having the little guy around, but he knows this isn’t really the same cat he’d cuddled with for five years so he needs to give Bishiya time. “Hi, buddy. I’ve missed you. You’re doing good, huh? Shuri fixed you up and she fixed Bucky up and you’re both in your own bodies now. Ain’t that something?”

Bishiya stares at Steve for a while, his tail flicking back and forth before he slowly sits down. When Steve doesn’t move, Bishiya gradually makes himself more comfortable, wedging his little warm body against Steve’s stomach and lying down like Bucky used to do. Sniffing Steve’s shirt, Bishiya slowly relaxes. He’s not purring, but he’s definitely comfortable.

Bucky and Steve are both smiling down at him.

Moving slowly, Bucky extends his hand towards Bishiya. The cat presses himself a bit closer to Steve but he tentatively sniffs Bucky’s fingers.

“That’s a good boy, Bishiya,” Bucky whispers. “You’re being so brave. You’ve always been a bit of a scaredy-cat, haven’t you? You were so scared when we went outside the first time and you didn’t like the sky train or going for hikes, but you were brave and you got used to it, didn’t you? This is the same thing. You’re scared now but we’re gonna take good care of you and we’re gonna be a family just like before. Only this time, everybody’s in their own bodies.”

Having sniffed Bucky’s fingers enough, Bishiya carefully moves his head so Bucky’s fingers are skimming over the soft black fur on top of his head.

Bucky’s barely moving his fingers and Steve stays as still as possible. Slowly, Bishiya starts to relax and Bucky moves his fingers to scratch behind Bishiya’s ears and that’s when Steve feels Bishiya purring.

Steve smiles down at the little black cat.

Welcome back to the family, Bishiya.

*             *             *

“Oh, Steve, look! It’s a—” and Bucky rattles off a long, complicated plant name that Steve has no hope of understanding as Bucky darts off the hiking trail and crouches down next to an odd looking fern.

“I’m sure it’s whatever you say it is, Mr. Conservation Officer,” Steve says with a laugh.

“Come see! It’s got the coolest looking spores. These ferns are really rare.”

Steve glances down at Bishiya. “You wanna come see what Bucky found?”

Bishiya looks up at Steve and as usual, he doesn’t look like he has any desire to go running through the undergrowth with Bucky when he’s plant-exploring.

In the last three years, they’ve all gotten accustomed to Bishiya’s unique personality, which is nothing like Bucky’s. Where Bucky is adventurous, Bishiya is content to stick to routines and has no desire to go off exploring. He doesn’t mind sky train rides, but he prefers to stay curled up on Bucky or Steve’s laps and doesn’t care what’s going on outside the window, a stark contrast to Bucky, who keeps his nose glued to the window no matter how many times they’ve done the same trip.

Unlike Bucky, Bishiya is content to spend his days at home on his cat tree, sleeping in the sun while they’re out, but he does like accompanying them during their weekend hikes.

Steve crouches down. “Come on, pal. I’ll carry you and we’ll go see what Buck found.” Scooping him up, Steve carefully makes his way through the undergrowth and crouches down next to Bucky.

Bucky’s already got his magnifying glass out and he’s peering at the underside of the fern he’s crouched in front of.

“Take a look!” Bucky says in Wakandan, grinning and waving the magnifying glass at him.

Steve takes the magnifying glass from him and hands him Bishiya as he leans close to look at the little brown spots underneath the fern. “Oh, neat! They’re in little star clusters.”

“Yeah! These ferns are amazing. The rhizomes—you remember what the rhizome is, right?”

Steve rolls his eyes with a grin and hands the magnifying glass back to Bucky. “I do pay attention when you talk, Barnes.”

Bucky laughs. “You better! Okay, so the rhizome—”

Steve listens to Bucky telling him all about the fern’s unique structure, but mostly he’s smiling at the way Bucky’s eyes are glowing and he looks so happy as he crouches on the forest floor, gently holding the fern in his hands—one metal and one flesh—and tells Steve about it.

When they’d discussed what Bucky wanted to do for a career, they’d kept circling back around to Bucky’s love of nature and how much he enjoys being out in the forest. After decades spent locked in a frozen, dark tomb, being out in the sun is something Bucky will never tire of.

He’d done a two year intensive botany degree at the university and now he’s working for the government as a conservation officer, spending his days in the forest and monitoring the plant life. It never fails to make Steve laugh. Here’s Bucky Barnes, a city boy from head to toe, who’s now spending most of his waking hours in the wilderness by choice.

“That’s awesome, ain’t it?” Bucky asks, finishing his explanation about the fern.

“Yeah, it is. You know what else is awesome?”

Bucky laughs. “Let me guess…me?”

Steve pretends to look confused. “I was gonna say me…” He manages to keep the confused look on his face for a few more seconds before they burst out laughing and Bucky gives him a shove.

“I love you too, Rogers.”

Steve’s laughing too hard to say anything so he just smirks at Bucky.

Rolling his eyes at Steve and trying to suppress his grin, Bucky carefully stands up, Bishiya in his arms. “Come on, Bishiya, let’s go visit our hollow tree and leave this stupid punk here to rot. Doesn’t that sound like a good plan? Huh? We’re gonna visit your favorite tree!” Bucky says in Wakandan, rubbing the black cat’s face with his own as he carefully climbs out of the undergrowth and steps back on the path, leaving Steve chuckling as he stands up and gets out of the undergrowth.

Putting Bishiya down, Bucky straightens up and slides his magnifying glass it into one of the million pockets on his work vest. “Hollow tree, here we come!”

When Steve is back on the path, Bucky tilts his head down the path and holds out his hand. “Come on, Rogers. Tree time!”

Smiling, Steve reaches over, takes Bucky’s hand and they walk down the trail, Bishiya trotting along beside them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the end of this one, folks! Thank you for giving this unique premise a chance. I live for comments so if you enjoyed the story, it would mean the world to me if you took the time to let me know!


End file.
